Abstract

Wetlands are ecologically and economically significant ecosystems that require monitoring and management due to increasing threats from both anthropogenic pressure and climatic variability. Remote sensing provides timely, up-to-date, relatively accurate, and cost-effective information on wetlands. This entry provides an overview of remote sensing data and the methods, challenges, and application in wetland ecosystems. Data acquired from different remote sensors such as multispectral and hyperspectral imagers, radar, and lidar systems have been utilized for wetland mapping and change detection, characterizing biophysical and biochemical properties of wetland vegetation and its temporal dynamics at a range of spatiotemporal scales. The increasing number of Earth observation sensors and their spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution is enabling more accurate detection of wetland extent, biological productivity, habitat quality, and overall ecological dynamics. Integration of remotely sensed data acquired at multiple scales combined with advancements in image analysis techniques is overcoming data-specific and methodological challenges in wetland remote sensing.