DEA Coastal Ecosystems

Mapping coastal ecosystems is vital for understanding, managing, and protecting the diverse habitats that line our shorelines. These ecosystems—ranging from mangroves and saltmarshes to seagrass meadows and coral reefs—provide essential environmental services, including carbon storage, coastal protection, and habitat for marine biodiversity. From an economic standpoint, they sustain industries such as fisheries and tourism while reducing costs associated with coastal erosion and storm damage. Accurate and comprehensive mapping underpins management, restoration, and conservation efforts, allowing planners to identify priority areas, monitor ecological change, and assess the effectiveness of interventions.Achieving this at a continental scale, however, poses significant challenges. Traditional methods such as field surveys, aerial photography, and local-scale sampling are costly, labour-intensive, and constrained in spatial and temporal scope—limitations that are particularly relevant in a country as vast and remote as Australia. Earth Observation (EO) provides an efficient and consistent alternative, allowing large-scale, high-resolution, and repeatable mapping through the use of publicly available satellite imagery.The Digital Earth Australia (DEA) Coastal Ecosystems product suite (https://knowledge.dea.ga.gov.au/data/product/dea-coastal-ecosystems/) is the first national dataset to simultaneously map Australia’s mangrove, saltmarsh, intertidal, and intertidal seagrass ecosystems at 10 m resolution, using annual time-series of Sentinel-2 satellite imagery for consistent mapping at a continental scale. Applications- National Environmental Ecosystem Accounts- National and Regional State of the Environment reporting- A complementary mapping product to fill spatial and temporal gaps in higher resolution expert mapping (aerial and drone mapping, field surveys)- Future integration with other terrestrial and ocean data sets (e.g. Land Cover and Marine Tenure)- Coastal protection and Hazard modelling

海岸生态系统制图对于认知、管理与保护沿海岸线分布的多样生境至关重要。此类生态系统涵盖红树林、盐沼、海草床与珊瑚礁等类型，可提供碳封存、海岸防护、海洋生物多样性栖息地等关键生态系统服务。从经济视角而言，它们支撑渔业、旅游业等产业发展，同时降低海岸侵蚀与风暴灾害带来的损失。精准且全面的生态系统制图是管理、修复与保护工作的核心支撑，可帮助规划者划定优先保护区域、监测生态变化并评估干预措施的成效。
然而，在大陆尺度完成此类制图工作却面临诸多严峻挑战。传统制图方法如野外调查、航空摄影与局域尺度采样，不仅成本高昂、劳动强度大，还受限于空间与时间覆盖范围——对于幅员辽阔且偏远区域众多的澳大利亚而言，此类局限尤为突出。地球观测（Earth Observation, EO）技术则提供了高效且一致的替代方案，可依托公开可用的卫星影像实现大尺度、高分辨率且可重复的生态系统制图。
澳大利亚数字地球（Digital Earth Australia, DEA）海岸生态系统产品套件（https://knowledge.dea.ga.gov.au/data/product/dea-coastal-ecosystems/）是澳大利亚首个全国性数据集，借助哨兵2号（Sentinel-2）卫星影像的年度时间序列数据，以10米分辨率同步制图澳大利亚的红树林、盐沼、潮间带与潮间带海草生态系统，实现大陆尺度的一致性制图。
应用场景：
- 全国性生态系统环境核算
- 国家与区域环境状况报告编制
- 作为补充制图产品，填补高分辨率专家制图（航空与无人机测绘、野外调查）在空间与时间覆盖上的空白
- 未来可与其他陆地与海洋数据集（如土地覆盖、海洋权属）开展整合
- 海岸防护与灾害建模