Mangrove Cover Dataset of Pakistan on 5-Year Interval (1990-2020) at 30m Spatial Resolution

The first comprehensive mangrove cover dataset from 1990 to 2020, at five-year intervals, across all five mangrove areas in Pakistan, i.e. Indus Delta, Sandspit, Sonmiani, Kalmat Khor, and Jiwani. Using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) geospatial cloud computing platform, Random Forest (RF) classifier was applied on Landsat 30 m spatial resolution satellite images to classify three major land cover classes: ‘mangrove’, ‘water’ and ‘other’. High temporal and spectral resolutions of Landsat images, with a low saturation level of spectral bands with the integration of indices, are the main factors that ensured >90% overall accuracy of land cover maps. Overall, the findings of this paper revealed that, at the national scale, an estimated 477.22 sq. km was covered with mangrove in 1990, which increased to 1463.59 sq. km in 2020, a 3.74% annual rate of change. Mangrove fragmentation mapping results have also showed enhancement in mangrove tree canopy density. The mangrove cover dataset of Pakistan on 5-year interval (1990-2020) at 30m spatial resolution data is available here: Citation: Use of these data requires citation of this dataset: Gilani, Hammad, Naz, Hafiza Iqra, Arshad, Masood, Nazim, Kanwal, Akram, Usman, Abrar, Aneeqa, & Asif, Muhammad. (2024). Mangrove cover dataset of Pakistan on 5-year interval (1990-2020) at 30m spatial resolution (1.0) [Dataset]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10732690 Original research article: Gilani, H., Naz, H.I., Arshad, M., Nazim, K., Akram, U., Abrar, A., & Asif, M. (2021). Evaluating mangrove conservation and sustainability throughspatiotemporal (1990–2020) mangrove cover change analysis in Pakistan. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 249: 107128. doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2020.107128