Wetlands systems are at the risk to changes in hydrological regime under climatic variation. Wetland habitat is sensitive and responses quick to climate changes. Wetlands cover 6% of the world’s land surface and contain about 12% of the global carbon pool, play an important role in the global carbon cycle (International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); In a time of global climate change, wetlands conditions are not known well enough. That’s why the research that we have been carried out since couple of years which are based on satellite data and in-situ data are important for depicting the changes in hydrological and vegetation parameters. Biebrza Wetlands are our main area of research, because they are: • one of the largest area in Europe covered with marshes, swamps, and wet meadows • 60 000 ha of flat river valley covered with hydrogenic soils such as peat in various stages of mouldering • habitat of 271 bird species • protected as a National Park, Natura 2000 and RAMSAR sites The results are also connected to serve as an indicator of UN Sustainable Development Goal 6.6.1 - Change in the extent of water-related ecosystems over time.
The results of application of microwave and optical satellite data for soil moisture (SM) assessment are presented. The research has been carried out from 2015 to 2016 at Biebrza Wetlands test site located in North-East Poland, designated by Ramsar Convention as Wetlands of International Importance. A regression models based on Sentinel-1 backscattering coefficients (σ°) have been developed to generate the soil moisture (SM) maps over Biebrza Wetlands. The optical data from Sentinel-2 have been used for the classification of wetlands vegetation habitats to improve SM predictions. The wetland vegetation differed, there were reeds, sedge-moss, sedges, grass-herbs, and grass. The majority of the changes occurred in moist habitats, while anthropogenic appeared more stable during study period. The observed changes were referred to moving/grazing changes and weather effects causing droughts/floods. SM differed from 30% during the drought season in 2015 to 95% in the wet season in 2016. It has been examined the impact of biomass and SM on microwave signal under changing soil moisture and vegetation growth conditions. Vegetation biomass has been characterized by measured in-situ LAI and by vegetation indices calculated from Sentinel-2, Terra MODIS data. The impact of SM and LAI on σ° calculated from Sentinel-1 data showed that LAI dominates the influence on σ° when SM is low. The analysis have been done to estimate the threshold of the SM values which dominate the backscatter. This study demonstrates the capability of Sentinel-1/2 data to estimate SM, offering an important advantage for wetlands monitoring.
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