Sub-meter Mangrove Spatial Distribution Dataset of China in 2020

Mangroves are a vital component of coastal ecosystems, providing essential ecological services such as seawater purification, carbon storage, and biodiversity support. However, mangrove ecosystems have long been disturbed by human activities and natural disasters, making accurate monitoring and long-term tracking of mangrove changes particularly important. Existing large-scale mangrove mapping products typically have spatial resolutions of 10 meters or 30 meters. While these studies have made significant progress in advancing mangrove monitoring and conservation, they still face challenges, including inaccurate boundary identification, difficulty in extracting internal details, and issues with detecting small patches. To address these challenges, this dataset employs a novel Semi-automatic Sub-meter Mapping Method (SSMM). The method enhances the spectral separability between mangroves and other land cover types by selecting nine key features from Sentinel-2 and Google Earth imagery. Additionally, an innovative automated sample collection method was developed to ensure the acquisition of representative and sufficient samples. Finally, the dataset was generated using a random forest classifier, resulting in the 2020 Large-scale Sub-meter Mangrove Map (LSMM). This dataset reflects the spatial distribution of mangroves in China's coastal areas in 2020 and provides a new benchmark for large-scale or long-term mangrove monitoring.