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Mapping native and non-native vegetation communities in a coastal wetland complex using multi-seasonal Sentinel-2 time series

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Abstract

Coastal wetland ecosystems support a wide range of native species; however, they are currently threatened by invasive plant species. The Point Calimere Ramsar Site, located in India, contains coastal tropical dry evergreen forests, coastal grasslands, and mangroves that are now threatened by the invasion of Prosopis species. Consequently, several birds, mammals, and amphibians that depend on these habitats are also at risk. Therefore, tracking and monitoring invasive species is required for restoring wetland ecosystems and preventing further invasions. The present study investigated multi-season Sentinel-2 Spectral Temporal Metrics (STM) for mapping coastal native and non-native vegetation communities using summer, monsoon, and post-monsoon season datasets with Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. The results show that a combination of summer and post-monsoon Sentinel-2 spectral-temporal metrics produced the best accuracy (Overall accuracy—94%) for mapping Prosopis, tropical dry evergreen forests, and coastal grasslands, while the monsoon dataset produced the best results for mapping mangroves. However, the entire season’s spectral temporal metrics produced the best average results for all land cover classes. We also analyzed the distribution and fragmentation of Prosopis in the various landscapes of the Ramsar site using Fragstats. Our findings showed that Prosopis is extensively distributed in the Point Calimere Wildlife Sanctuary, posing a significant threat to the wildlife that resides there. We anticipate that our map will be used for the ongoing Prosopis clearance in our study site, and our study provides a comprehensive application for monitoring Prosopis and native vegetation in coastal tropical wetland habitats using Sentinel-2 STM.

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Source: Rainfall data retrieved from NASA's Power Database (https://power.larc.nasa.gov/). This figure illustrates the decadal precipitation pattern, providing crucial insights into the climatic conditions of the study area

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Acknowledgements

The European Space Agency provided free access to the Sentinel-2 data product, and the Google Earth Engine platform was used for the analysis. We are grateful to the Tamil Nadu Forest Department and the local village communities for their logistics and support. We would like to express our gratitude to the University of Greifswald, Germany, and Vel Tech University, India for their support with the logistics.

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No funding was received for conducting this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geography and Geology, University of Greifswald, Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Straße 16, 17489, Greifswald, Germany

    M. Arasumani

  2. Centre for Autonomous System Research, Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr.Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, 600062, India

    M. Kumaresan

  3. National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research (NITTTR), Taramani, Chennai, 600113, India

    Balasubramanian Esakki

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  1. M. Arasumani
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Correspondence to M. Arasumani.

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Arasumani, M., Kumaresan, M. & Esakki, B. Mapping native and non-native vegetation communities in a coastal wetland complex using multi-seasonal Sentinel-2 time series. Biol Invasions 26, 1105–1124 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-023-03232-y

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