Supervised wetland classification using high spatial resolution optical, SAR, and LiDAR imagery

Wetlands are among the most valuable natural resources, being highly beneficial to both the environment and humans. Therefore, it is very important to map and monitor wetlands. Although various remote sensing datasets, including optical, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), light detection and ranging (LiDAR) imagery, have been widely applied to classify wetlands, it is still required to discuss the advantages/limitations of each of these datasets and suggest the best remote sensing methodology for wetland mapping. Thus, the Terra Nova National Park, located in Newfoundland, Canada, was initially selected as the study area to develop a supervised classification method along with object-based image analysis. To this end, different remote sensing-based scenarios were investigated using individual optical, SAR, and LiDAR datasets, as well as their various combinations. In addition, for achieving the highest accuracy, the effects of segmentation scales and the tuning parameters of the random forest (RF) classifier were examined. The results showed that a combination of optical, SAR, and LiDAR images with the segmentation scale of 150, the RF depth of 20, and the RF minimum sample number of 5 provided the highest classification accuracy with the overall accuracy of 87.2%. Moreover, based on the results, approximately 21% and 79% of the study area are covered by wetlands and nonwetlands, respectively. The proposed methodology shows an optimum scenario for future wetland classification tasks and can assist stakeholders in the effective management of wetlands and establishment of necessary policies.