ESTIMATION OF MANGROVE FOREST ABOVEGROUND BIOMASS USING MULTISPECTRAL BANDS, VEGETATION INDICES AND BIOPHYSICAL VARIABLES DERIVED FROM OPTICAL SATELLITE IMAGERIES: RAPIDEYE, PLANETSCOPE AND SENTINEL-2

Abstract. Aboveground biomass estimation (AGB) is essential in determining the environmental and economic values of mangrove forests. Biomass prediction models can be developed through integration of remote sensing, field data and statistical models. This study aims to assess and compare the biomass predictor potential of multispectral bands, vegetation indices and biophysical variables that can be derived from three optical satellite systems: the Sentinel-2 with 10 m, 20 m and 60 m resolution; RapidEye with 5m resolution and PlanetScope with 3m ground resolution. Field data for biomass were collected from a Rhizophoraceae-dominated mangrove forest in Masinloc, Zambales, Philippines where 30 test plots (1.2 ha) and 5 validation plots (0.2 ha) were established. Prior to the generation of indices, images from the three satellite systems were pre-processed using atmospheric correction tools in SNAP (Sentinel-2), ENVI (RapidEye) and python (PlanetScope). The major predictor bands tested are Blue, Green and Red, which are present in the three systems; and Red-edge band from Sentinel-2 and Rapideye. The tested vegetation index predictors are Normalized Differenced Vegetation Index (NDVI), Soil-adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), Green-NDVI (GNDVI), Simple Ratio (SR), and Red-edge Simple Ratio (SRre). The study generated prediction models through conventional linear regression and multivariate regression. Higher coefficient of determination (r²) values were obtained using multispectral band predictors for Sentinel-2 (r² = 0.89) and Planetscope (r² = 0.80); and vegetation indices for RapidEye (r² = 0.92). Multivariate Adaptive Regression Spline (MARS) models performed better than the linear regression models with r² ranging from 0.62 to 0.92. Based on the r² and root-mean-square errors (RMSE’s), the best biomass prediction model per satellite were chosen and maps were generated. The accuracy of predicted biomass maps were high for both Sentinel-2 (r² = 0.92) and RapidEye data (r² = 0.91).