Unmixing water and mud: Characterizing diffuse boundaries of subtidal mud banks from individual satellite observations

Mapping of subtidal banks in mud-dominated coastal systems is crucial as they influence not only shoreline and ecosystem dynamics but also economic activities and livelihoods of local communities. Due to associated spatiotemporal variations in suspended particulate matter concentrations, subtidal mudbanks are often confined by diffuse and rapidly changing boundaries. To avoid inaccurate representations of these mudbanks in remote sensing images, it is necessary to unmix distinctive reflectance signals into representative landcover fractions. Yet, extracting mud fractions, in order to characterize such diffuse boundaries, is challenging because of the spectral similarity between subtidal- and intertidal features. Here we show that an unsupervised decision tree, used to derive spatially explicit and spectrally coherent image endmembers, facilitates robust linear spectral unmixing on an image-to-image basis, enabling the separation of these coastal features. We found that resulting abundance maps represent cross-shore gradients of vegetation, water and mud fractions present at the coast of Suriname. Furthermore, we confirmed that it is possible to separate land, water and an initial estimate of intertidal zones on individual images. Thus, spectral signatures of end-member candidates, determined from relevant index histograms within these initial estimates, are consistent. These results demonstrate that spectral information from well-defined spatial neighbourhoods facilitates the detection of diffuse boundaries of mudbanks with a spectral unmixing approach.

Automated summary

Mapping subtidal banks in mud-dominated coastal systems is important for understanding their impact on shoreline dynamics, ecosystems, economic activities, and local communities. Spectral unmixing using an unsupervised decision tree can help separate coastal features and detect diffuse boundaries of mudbanks accurately in remote sensing images. The spatially explicit and spectrally coherent image endmembers derived from this approach facilitate the characterization of mud fractions and improve the representation of cross-shore gradients in coastal regions like Suriname.