ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Coastal Ocean Processes
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1653430
Sub-meter Resolution Wetland Map of Hainan with Detailed Types from Multi-source Satellite Imagery
Provisionally accepted
- 1Haikou Marine Geological Survey Center, China Geological Survey, Haikou, China
- 2Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang, China
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Obtaining wetland data with high spatial accuracy and typological completeness is essential for understanding ecosystem functions, evaluating services, and informing conservation policy. However, fine-scale wetland mapping in tropical island regions remains challenging due to persistent cloud cover, image limitations, complex wetland types, and dynamic hydrology. In this study, we developed a submeter resolution wetland mapping framework for Hainan Island, China, by integrating multi-source optical imagery (e.g., WorldView-2/3, Gaofen-1/2), dual-temporal features, and RTK-based field validation. A hierarchical system of 3 major categories and 17 subcategories was constructed, based on the Ramsar Convention and tailored to island wetlands. The 2019 map (3842.84 km²) achieved 96.13% overall accuracy (Kappa = 0.95), identifying many small, fragmented wetland patches (0.0004-0.08 km²) omitted in national inventories. It also revealed rapid artificial wetland expansion and strong spatial heterogeneity in natural wetlands. This work provides a reliable high-resolution dataset and replicable methodology for tropical wetland monitoring, blue carbon assessment, and ecological management.
Keywords: Wetland mapping, Hainan Island, Sub-meter resolution imagery, Visual interpretation, Dual-temporal satellite imagery
Received: 27 Jun 2025; Accepted: 07 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Liu, Liu, Yu, Deng, Ding, Chen and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Fangyi Li, Haikou Marine Geological Survey Center, China Geological Survey, Haikou, China
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