UC San Diego

Consequences of global warming are causing mangrove migration from tropical habitats towards temperate zones. Forests at limits and transition zones are important to monitor for promoting local management and conservation efforts. The advancement of remote sensing technology in the past decade has allowed more insight into these habitats at large scales, and recent studies using satellite imagery have succeeded in creating baselines for global mangrove extent. However, the high surveying range comes with a cost of reduced resolution, causing gaps in areas with high fragmentation or low canopy height, such as in dwarf mangrove habitats. By using drones, we were able to conduct detailed analyses of canopy height distribution for dwarf mangroves in Baja California Sur. This new model provides a focused approach at analyzing parameters that contribute to the multidimensionality of mangrove forests with primarily remote sensing data. Additionally, improved biomass models were constructed with the drone data and compared against satellite data. Due to its inaccuracies in approximated mangrove extent and canopy height, satellite imagery significantly underestimates above ground biomass and carbon measurements in this region, and potentially dwarf mangroves in general. The pairing of satellite and drone imagery allows for a more robust view of mangrove ecosystems, which is critical in understanding their poleward movement with respect to climate change.