TY - JOUR A1 - Carus, Jana A1 - Heuner, Maike A1 - Paul, Maike A1 - Schröder, Boris T1 - Plant distribution and stand characteristics in brackish marshes BT - Unravelling the roles of abiotic factors and interspecific competition JF - Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science N2 - Due to increasing pressure on estuarine marshes from sea level rise and river training, there is a growing need to understand how species-environment relationships influence the zonation and growth of tidal marsh vegetation. In the present study, we investigated the distribution and stand characteristics of the two key brackish marsh species Bolboschoenus maritimus and Phragmites australis in the Elbe estuary together with several abiotic habitat factors. We then tested the effect of these habitat factors on plant growth and zonation with generalised linear models (GLMs). Our study provides detailed information on the importance of single habitat factors and their interactions for controlling the distribution patterns and stand characteristics of two key marsh species. Our results suggest that flow velocity is the main factor influencing species distribution and stand characteristics and together with soil-water salinity even affects the inundation tolerance of the two specie investigated here. Additionally, inundation height and duration as well as interspecific competition helped explain the distribution patterns and stand characteristics. By identifying the drivers of marsh zonation and stand characteristics and quantifying their effects, this study provides useful information for evaluating a future contribution of tidal marsh vegetation to ecosystem-based shore protection. KW - Bolboschoenus maritimus KW - Elbe estuary KW - Flow velocity KW - Inundation KW - Phragmites australis KW - Soil-water salinity Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2017.06.038 SN - 0272-7714 SN - 1096-0015 VL - 196 SP - 237 EP - 247 PB - Elsevier CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Malinowski, Radostaw A1 - Höfle, Bernhard A1 - Koenig, Kristina A1 - Groom, Geoff A1 - Schwanghart, Wolfgang A1 - Heckrath, Goswin T1 - Local-scale flood mapping on vegetated floodplains from radiometrically calibrated airborne LiDAR data JF - ISPRS journal of photogrammetry and remote sensing : official publication of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing N2 - Knowledge about the magnitude of localised flooding of riverine areas is crucial for appropriate land management and administration at regional and local levels. However, detection and delineation of localised flooding with remote sensing techniques are often hampered on floodplains by the presence of herbaceous vegetation. To address this problem, this study presents the application of full waveform airborne laser scanning (ALS) data for detection of floodwater extent. In general, water surfaces are characterised by low values of backscattered energy due to water absorption of the infrared laser shots, but the exact strength of the recorded laser pulse depends on the area covered by the targets located within a laser pulse footprint area. To account for this we analysed the physical quantity of radio metrically calibrated ALS data, the backscattering coefficient, in relation to water and vegetation coverage within a single laser footprint. The results showed that the backscatter was negatively correlated to water coverage, and that of the three distinguished classes of water coverage (low, medium, and high) only the class with the largest extent of water cover (>70%) had relatively distinct characteristics that can be used for classification of water surfaces. Following the laser footprint analysis, three classifiers, namely AdaBoost with Decision Tree, Naive Bayes and Random Forest, were utilised to classify laser points into flooded and non-flooded classes and to derive the map of flooding extent. The performance of the classifiers is highly dependent on the set of laser points features used. Best performance was achieved by combining radiometric and geometric laser point features. The accuracy of flooding maps based solely on radiometric features resulted in overall accuracies of up to 70% and was limited due to the overlap of the backscattering coefficient values between water and other land cover classes. Our point-based classification methods assure a high mapping accuracy (similar to 89%) and demonstrate the potential of using full-waveform ALS data to detect water surfaces on floodplain areas with limited water surface exposition through the vegetation canopy. (C) 2016 International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Inc. (ISPRS). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - ALS KW - LiDAR KW - Point cloud KW - Inundation KW - Full-waveform KW - Water Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2016.06.009 SN - 0924-2716 SN - 1872-8235 VL - 119 SP - 267 EP - 279 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -