A Prediction of Estuary Wetland Vegetation with Satellite Images

Estuarine wetlands are the transition zone between marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems and are more ecologically fragile. In recent years, the spread of exotic vegetation, specifically Spartina alterniflora, in the Yellow River estuary wetlands has significantly encroached upon the habitats of native species such as Phragmites australis, Suaeda glauca Bunge, and Tamarix chinensis Lour. With advances in land prediction modeling, predicting wetland vegetation distribution can aid management and decision-making for ecological restoration. We selected the core area as the study object and coupled the hydrological model MIKE 21 with the PLUS model to predict the potential future distribution of invasive and dominant species in the region. (1) Based on the fine classification results from satellite images of GF1/G2/G5, we gained an understanding of the changes in wetland vegetation types in the core area of the reserve in 2018 and 2020. (2) Using public data such as ERA5 and GEO as input for basic environmental data, using MIKE 21 to provide high-spatial-resolution hydrodynamic parameters for the PLUS model as an environmental driver, we modeled the spatial distribution of various wetland vegetation in the Yellow River estuary wetland in Dongying under different artificial restoration measures. (3) We predicted the 2022 distribution of typical vegetation in the region, used the classification results of GF6 as the actual distribution, compared the spatial distribution with the actual distribution, and obtained a kappa coefficient of 0.78; the predicted values of the model are highly consistent with the true values. This study combines the fine classification results of vegetation based on hyperspectral remote sensing, the construction of a coupled model, and the prediction effect of typical species, providing a reference for constructing and optimizing the vegetation prediction model of estuarine wetlands. It also allows scientific and effective decision-making for the management of ecological restoration of delta wetlands.