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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ISPRS-Annals</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ISPRS-Annals</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">2194-9050</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/isprs-annals-X-4-W8-2025-413-2026</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Evaluation of UAV Flight Altitude for Accurate Mangrove Canopy Height Estimation: A Case Study from Melgonze, Persian Gulf, Iran</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Kabiri</surname>
<given-names>Keivan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Karimi</surname>
<given-names>Ali</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Department of Marine Remote Sensing, Iranian National Institute for Oceanography and Atmospheric Science, 1411813389, Tehran, Iran</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Department of Animal Sciences and Marine Biology, Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, 1983969411, Tehran, Iran</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>29</day>
<month>05</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>X-4/W8-2025</volume>
<fpage>413</fpage>
<lpage>417</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Keivan Kabiri</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-annals.copernicus.org/articles/X-4-W8-2025/413/2026/isprs-annals-X-4-W8-2025-413-2026.html">This article is available from https://isprs-annals.copernicus.org/articles/X-4-W8-2025/413/2026/isprs-annals-X-4-W8-2025-413-2026.html</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-annals.copernicus.org/articles/X-4-W8-2025/413/2026/isprs-annals-X-4-W8-2025-413-2026.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://isprs-annals.copernicus.org/articles/X-4-W8-2025/413/2026/isprs-annals-X-4-W8-2025-413-2026.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become valuable tools for high-resolution ecological monitoring, particularly in complex environments such as mangrove forests. This study investigates the impact of flight altitude on the accuracy of tree height estimation in the Melgonze mangrove forest, in southern Iran. Two UAV flights were conducted at altitudes of 100 meters and 150 meters using a DJI Phantom 4 Pro, and photogrammetric processing was performed using Agisoft Metashape. A total of 16 mangrove trees were measured in the field to provide ground-truth reference data. Canopy height models (CHMs) were generated from both UAV datasets and compared to the field measurements. Preliminary results indicate that the 100-meter flight achieved higher accuracy, with a lower root mean square error (RMSE =21.2 cm), Mean Absolute Error (18.94 cm), and a higher coefficient of determination (R&amp;sup2; = 0.97) compared to the 150-meter flight (43.3 cm, 35 cm, and 0.92, respectively). These findings underscore the significance of flight altitude in UAV-based assessments of forest structure and offer practical guidelines for optimizing data acquisition in future mangrove mapping applications.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="5"/></counts>
</article-meta>
</front>
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