Mapping Isolated Wetlands in a Karst Landscape: GIS and Remote Sensing Methods

Abstract

GIS and remote sensing (RS) techniques using Landsat ETM+ and objectoriented segmentation were developed to identify depressional isolated wetlands in a >2,600 km2 mixed land use area of north-central Florida, USA. Both the standalone RS method and the combined GIS/RS method were successful at identifying isolated wetlands > 0.20 ha. Combining the GIS and RS methods yielded producer and user accuracies ranging from 93 to 100% and 86 to 95%, respectively. The methods utilized successfully mapped isolated wetlands and could be used to address questions surrounding national estimates and areal distribution of isolated wetlands.