Combining Remote Sensing and Field Mapping Methods to Study the Vegetation Dynamics within a Coastal Wetland and Determine the Habitat Effects of a Threatened Bird Species (Emberiza schoeniclus witherbyi)

ABSTRACT Carrasco, L.; Vera, P.; Belda, E.J., and Monros, J.S., 2018. Combining remote sensing and field mapping methods to study the vegetation dynamics within a coastal wetland and determine the habitat effects of a threatened bird species (Emberiza schoeniclus witherbyi). Coastal wetlands are highly dynamic changing ecosystems because of the effects of meteorology, wildlife interactions and human activities. They are one of the world's most threatened ecosystems, and threats to them drive the most specialist species to unfavorable conservation status and population trends. Therefore, it is important to frequently monitor the coverage changes of the different vegetation types to understand these species' population dynamics. However, frequent and detailed cartography entails costly efforts. Here, satellite images with field mapping were combined to create vegetation classification maps for past years from SPOT-5 images in the Pego-Oliva coastal wetland (Spain) and obtained classification accuracies abov...