Wetland mapping at 10 m resolution reveals fragmentation in southern Nigeria

Mangrove; Marsh; Optical indices; Random forest; SAR polarimetric indices; Swamp; Uncertainty; Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics; Aquatic Science; Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

Abstract :

[en] Wetland ecosystems play key roles in global biogeochemical cycling, but their spatial extent and connectivity is often not well known. Here, we detect the spatial coverage and type of wetlands at 10 m resolution across southern Nigeria (total area: 147,094 km2), thought to be one of the most wetland-rich areas of Africa. We use Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 imagery supported by 1500 control points for algorithm training and validation. We estimate that the swamps, marshes, mangroves, and shallow water wetlands of southern Nigeria cover 29,924 km2 with 2% uncertainty of 460 km2. We found larger mangrove and smaller marsh extent than suggested by earlier, coarser spatial resolution studies. Average continuous wetland patch areas were 120, 11, 55 and 13 km2 for mangrove, marsh, swamp, and shallow water respectively. Our final map with 10 m pixels captures small patches of wetland which may not have been observed in earlier mapping exercises, with 20% of wetland patches being < 1 km2; these were clustered around urban centres, suggesting anthropogenic wetland fragmentation. Our approach fills a knowledge gap between very local (< 400 km2) studies reliant on field studies and aerial photos, and low resolution (> 250 m pixel dimensions) global wetland datasets and provides data critical for both improving land-surface climate models and for wetland conservation.

Disciplines :

Environmental sciences & ecology

Author, co-author :

Garba, Sani Idris; water@leeds, School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

Ebmeier, Susanna K.; School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

Bastin, Jean-François ; Université de Liège - ULiège > TERRA Research Centre > Biodiversité et Paysage

Mollicone, Danilo; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy

Holden, Joseph; water@leeds, School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

Language :

English

Title :

Wetland mapping at 10 m resolution reveals fragmentation in southern Nigeria

Publication date :

June 2023

Journal title :

Wetlands Ecology and Management

ISSN :

0923-4861

eISSN :

1572-9834

Publisher :

Springer Science and Business Media B.V.

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

329 - 345

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11273-023-09919-2.pdf

Funding text :

This project was funded by a studentship awarded to SIG under the Petroleum Technology and Development Fund (PTDF) Nigeria. The photo-interpretation dataset was part of the global dryland assessment which was conducted in the region by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the National Space Research and Development Agency of Nigeria. SKE is supported by a NERC Independent Research Fellowship (NE/R015566/1).This project was funded by a studentship awarded to SIG under the Petroleum Technology and Development Fund (PTDF) Nigeria. The photo-interpretation dataset was part of the global dryland assessment which was conducted in the region by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the National Space Research and Development Agency of Nigeria. SKE is supported by a NERC Independent Research Fellowship (NE/R015566/1).

Available on ORBi :

since 01 May 2024

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