Assessing the Impacts of Tidal Creeks on the Spatial Patterns of Coastal Salt Marsh Vegetation and Its Aboveground Biomass

The spatial distribution patterns of salt marsh plant communities and their biomass provide useful information for monitoring the stability productivity coastal ecosystems in space time. However, vegetation its aboveground (AGB) a remain unclear. This study mapped distributions AGB based on image LiDAR data acquired by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Yangtze River Estuary. differences structure at regions located different distances from tidal creeks were also tested. results show that estimated through random forest model is good agreement (R2 = 0.90, RMSE 0.1 kg m?2) with field-measured biomass. indicate estimation UAV-LiDAR algorithm high accuracy was efficiently estimating vegetation. Moreover, Phragmites australis, both proportion increased, while Scirpus mariqueter, Carex scabrifolia, Imperata cylindrica decreased increasing distance creeks. Our demonstrates are important shaping altering soil salinity moisture, so reasonable scientific measures should be taken to manage protect ecosystems.