Document Type
Article
Department/Program
Applied Science
Department
Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Journal Title
GIScience & Remote Sensing
Pub Date
1-2024
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Volume
61
Issue
1
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Coastal wetlands, especially tidal marshes, play a crucial role in supporting ecosystems and slowing shoreline erosion. Accurate and cost-effective identification and classification of various marsh types, such as high and low marshes, are important for effective coastal management and conservation endeavors. However, mapping tidal marshes is challenging due to heterogeneous coastal vegetation and dynamic tidal influences. In this study, we employ a deep learning segmentation model to automate the identification and classification of tidal marsh communities in coastal Virginia, USA, using seasonal, publicly available satellite and aerial images. This study leverages the combined capabilities of Sentinel-2 and National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) imagery and a UNet architecture to accurately classify tidal marsh communities. We illustrate that by leveraging features learned from data abundant regions and small quantities of high-quality training data collected from the target region, an accuracy as high as 88% can be achieved in the classification of marsh types, specifically high marsh and low marsh, at a spatial resolution of 0.6 m. This study contributes to the field of marsh mapping by highlighting the potential of combining multispectral satellite imagery and deep learning for accurate and efficient marsh type classification.
Recommended Citation
Lv, Zhonghui; Nunez, Karinna; Brewer, Ethan; and Runfola, Daniel, Mapping the Tidal Marshes of Coastal Virginia: A Hierarchical Transfer Learning Approach (2024). GIScience & Remote Sensing, 61(1).
https://doi.org/10.1080/15481603.2023.2287291
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/15481603.2023.2287291
