Three decades of Landsat-derived spring surface water dynamics in an agricultural wetland mosaic; Implications for migratory shorebirds.

ABSTRACT: Satellite measurements of surface water offer promise for understanding wetland habitat availability at broad spatial and temporal scales; reliable habitat is crucial for the persistence of migratory shorebirds that depend on wetland networks. We analyzed water extent dynamics within wetland habitats at a globally important shorebird stopover site for a 1983-2015 Landsat time series, and evaluated the effect of climate on water extent. A range of methods can detect open water from imagery, including supervised classification approaches and thresholds for spectral bands and indices. Thresholds provide a time advantage; however, there is no universally superior index, nor single best threshold for all instances. We used random forest to model the presence or absence of water from >6200 refer

SUBMITTER: Schaffer-Smith D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5674533 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature