Ravindra Nath Tripathi;Aishwarya Ramachandran;Vikas Tripathi;Ruchi Badola;S. A. Hussain
{"title":"Optimizing Riparian Habitat Conservation: A Spatial Approach Using Aerial and Space Technologies","authors":"Ravindra Nath Tripathi;Aishwarya Ramachandran;Vikas Tripathi;Ruchi Badola;S. A. Hussain","doi":"10.1109/JSTARS.2024.3454453","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Riparian habitats are the most crucial yet the most fragile ecosystems, focal to safeguarding both the aquatic and terrestrial regions. Technology such as remote sensing, now powered by cloud-based server-side processing of high-resolution satellite imagery, and Big Data analytics, such as Google Earth Engine (GEE) combined with uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), have accentuated ecological monitoring of natural habitats. This study leverages a nested approach to remote sensing, combining satellite data and UAV imagery to evaluate the present condition of riparian habitats along the Ganga River in the Upper Gangetic Plains. We used GEE to analyze Sentinel data and identify critical habitats, encompassing wetlands, grasslands, scrublands, plantations, river islands, and riparian forests in the study area. Strategic locations covering 291 km\n<sup>2</sup>\n area were delineated, and over 1000 patches of 1 ha were isolated, with the largest patch of 23.99 km\n<sup>2</sup>\n in Haiderpur. Furthermore, UAV-based data were collected for key identified regions. The status of a total of 284 field surveyed points was categorized as 29 intact grassland patches, 87 good habitat patches, 25 patches recently converted to agriculture, and 60 patches being converted to agriculture, remaining plantations, and waterbodies. UAV-based raster thematic maps of four key habitat regions generated using object-based image analysis classification found a promising approach for high-precision riparian habitat mapping, monitoring, and management, offering data quality, cost optimization, and time savings with an overall accuracy of 98% and kappa coefficient 0.97. UAV are, thus, effective tools for reach-level assessment of freshwater habitats, especially of smaller stream networks, retaining fine-scale riverscape information of the mosaic of land use and vegetation types.","PeriodicalId":13116,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10664440","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10664440/","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Riparian habitats are the most crucial yet the most fragile ecosystems, focal to safeguarding both the aquatic and terrestrial regions. Technology such as remote sensing, now powered by cloud-based server-side processing of high-resolution satellite imagery, and Big Data analytics, such as Google Earth Engine (GEE) combined with uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), have accentuated ecological monitoring of natural habitats. This study leverages a nested approach to remote sensing, combining satellite data and UAV imagery to evaluate the present condition of riparian habitats along the Ganga River in the Upper Gangetic Plains. We used GEE to analyze Sentinel data and identify critical habitats, encompassing wetlands, grasslands, scrublands, plantations, river islands, and riparian forests in the study area. Strategic locations covering 291 km
2
area were delineated, and over 1000 patches of 1 ha were isolated, with the largest patch of 23.99 km
2
in Haiderpur. Furthermore, UAV-based data were collected for key identified regions. The status of a total of 284 field surveyed points was categorized as 29 intact grassland patches, 87 good habitat patches, 25 patches recently converted to agriculture, and 60 patches being converted to agriculture, remaining plantations, and waterbodies. UAV-based raster thematic maps of four key habitat regions generated using object-based image analysis classification found a promising approach for high-precision riparian habitat mapping, monitoring, and management, offering data quality, cost optimization, and time savings with an overall accuracy of 98% and kappa coefficient 0.97. UAV are, thus, effective tools for reach-level assessment of freshwater habitats, especially of smaller stream networks, retaining fine-scale riverscape information of the mosaic of land use and vegetation types.
期刊介绍:
The IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing addresses the growing field of applications in Earth observations and remote sensing, and also provides a venue for the rapidly expanding special issues that are being sponsored by the IEEE Geosciences and Remote Sensing Society. The journal draws upon the experience of the highly successful “IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing” and provide a complementary medium for the wide range of topics in applied earth observations. The ‘Applications’ areas encompasses the societal benefit areas of the Global Earth Observations Systems of Systems (GEOSS) program. Through deliberations over two years, ministers from 50 countries agreed to identify nine areas where Earth observation could positively impact the quality of life and health of their respective countries. Some of these are areas not traditionally addressed in the IEEE context. These include biodiversity, health and climate. Yet it is the skill sets of IEEE members, in areas such as observations, communications, computers, signal processing, standards and ocean engineering, that form the technical underpinnings of GEOSS. Thus, the Journal attracts a broad range of interests that serves both present members in new ways and expands the IEEE visibility into new areas.