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A Mapping and Monitoring

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Jordan Graesser, Darrell Napton

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 Journal of Coastal Research 30 2 260–271 Coconut Creek, Florida March 2014

A Mapping and Monitoring Assessment of the Philippines’

Mangrove Forests from 1990 to 2010
Jordan Long†*, Darrell Napton‡, Chandra Giri§, and Jordan Graesser††
† ‡
ARSC Research and Technology Solutions Geography Department
Earth Resources Observation and Science South Dakota State University
Center Brookings, SD 57007, U.S.A.
Sioux Falls, SD 57198, U.S.A.
§ ††
U.S. Geological Survey Department of Geography
Earth Resources Observation and Science McGill University
Center Montreal, QC, Canada
Sioux Falls, SD 57198, U.S.A.

ABSTRACT
Long, J.; Napton, D.; Giri, C., and Graesser, J., 2014. A mapping and monitoring assessment of the Philippines’
mangrove forests from 1990 to 2010. Journal of Coastal Research, 30(2), 260–271. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-
0208.

Information on the present condition and spatiotemporal dynamics of mangrove forests is needed for land-change studies
and integrated natural resources planning and management. Although several national mangrove estimates for the
Philippines exist, information is unavailable at sufficient spatial and thematic detail for change analysis. Historical and
contemporary mangrove distribution maps of the Philippines for 1990 and 2010 were prepared at nominal 30-m spatial
resolution using Landsat satellite data. Image classification was performed using a supervised decision tree classification
approach. Additionally, decadal land-cover change maps from 1990 to 2010 were prepared to depict changes in mangrove
area. Total mangrove area decreased 10.5% from 1990 to 2010. Comparison of estimates produced from this study with
selected historical mangrove area estimates revealed that total mangrove area decreased by approximately half (51.8%)
from 1918 to 2010. This study provides the most current and reliable data regarding the Philippines mangrove area and
spatial distribution and delineates where and when mangrove change has occurred in recent decades. The results from
this study are useful for developing conservation strategies, biodiversity loss mitigation efforts, and future monitoring
and analysis.

ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS: Philippines’ mangrove, mapping land cover, decision tree classification, Landsat.

INTRODUCTION Mangrove ecosystems have become one the world’s most

Coastal mangroves are highly productive ecosystems found
within the intertidal zones of the tropics and subtropics
between approximately 308 N and 308 S latitude (Giri et al.,
2011). As a community, mangroves thrive in a wide range of
harsh environmental conditions and share unique adaptive
traits such as salt-excreting leaves, an exposed breathing root
system, and production of viviparous propagules (Duke, 1992).
Mangrove habitats are ecologically important because they
provide valuable ecosystem goods and services to coastal
populations. For example, products such as firewood, alcohol,
medicines, fish, and construction materials benefit coastal
inhabitants (Brown and Fischer, 1918; Spalding, Blasco, and
Field, 1997; Walters, 2005). Additionally, unperturbed man-
grove ecosystems provide bio-protection from coastal erosion,
tropical storms, and tsunamis (Alongi, 2008; Giri et al., 2008;
Naylor, Viles, and Carter, 2002); offer suitable breeding and
feeding sites for numerous aquatic and avian species (Ewel,
Twilley, and Ong, 1998; Rönnbäck, 1999); and are a major
carbon sink (Donato et al., 2011; Ong, 1993).
DOI: 10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-13-00057.1 received 8 March 2013;
accepted in revision 8 June 2013; corrected proofs received
27 August 2013.
Published Pre-print online 3 October 2013.
*Corresponding author: jlong@usgs.gov
Ó Coastal Education & Research Foundation 2014
threatened biomes in the past half-century (Field et al., 1998).
Valiela, Bowen, and York (2001) observed a 35% reduction of
the global mangrove areal extent in recent decades. Fortes
(2004) explained that anthropogenic activities, such as aqua-
culture, agriculture, forest extraction and logging, and urban
development were among the primary driving forces of
mangrove loss worldwide. In addition to human impacts,
natural events such as tsunamis, high water surge, wave
action, and tropical storms have also contributed to mangrove
loss worldwide (Alongi, 2008; Giri et al., 2008; Williams, Coles,
and Primavera, 2007). The threat from natural forces,
however, is considerably lower than the anthropogenic drivers
of mangrove loss (Giri et al., 2007; Macintosh and Ashton,
2005). Over the next century, sea-level rise and climate change
could substantially affect mangrove forests worldwide (Gilman
et al., 2008), and mangrove losses are expected to continue as
human populations increase and concentrate in coastal regions
(Mavis, 2001).
Study Area
The study area includes the mangrove-covered coastal
regions of the Philippines. The Republic of the Philippines is
an archipelago composed of 7107 islands located off the SE
coast of Asia and consists of three major island groups: Luzon,
Visavias, and Mindanao (Figure 1). This island nation is
 Philippines’ Mangrove Assessment
Figure 1. Study area.
considered one of the top biodiversity hot spot areas of the
world, supporting 1.9% of the world’s endemic plants and
vertebrate species (Myers et al., 2000). Mangrove biological
diversity is relatively high in the Philippines with 35 true
mangrove species, compared with North and Central America,
which have a combined total of 10 species. Only Indonesia (43
species), Malaysia (41 species), Australia (37 species), and
Papua New Guinea (37 species) have greater mangrove
biodiversity than the Philippines (FAO, 2007). According to a
Figure 2. Historical mangrove areal estimates for the Philippines (FAO, 2007; Long and Giri, 2011; Wilkie and Fortuna, 2003).
Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2014
261
recent global assessment of mangrove forests (Giri et al., 2011),
the Philippines contain 1.9% of the world’s total mangrove
area.
Over the past half-century, human activities have altered
much of the Philippines’ mangrove forests, with aquaculture
development being the primary driver of mangrove loss
(Primavera, 1995). The extent of mangrove disturbance,
however, is uncertain. Current, accurate, and reliable data
regarding the spatial distribution and rates of change in
mangrove area are limited for the Philippines. Fortes (2004,
p.247) expressed a need for Philippines’ mangrove extent and
spatial distribution data:
There is a dearth of data on the current status of the
seagrasses and mangroves in the Philippines: their actual
overall coverage, density, growth patterns, their responses to
perturbations, and use patterns. The data that exist are
scattered and inconclusive and do not provide sufficient detail
for the development of parameters to guide and monitor the
sustainable extraction of seagrass and mangrove resources. In
order to work towards more sustainable seagrass and man-
grove management in the Philippines, key gaps in data
collection need to be addressed.
Although several historical mangrove area estimates for the
Philippines exist (Figure 2), many estimates lack a consistent
methodology, few illustrate the spatial distribution of man-
groves for the entire country and are unusable for spatial
change analysis at the national scale, and a current estimate
does not exist. The estimates compiled in Figure 2 were
produced from various methods, such as statistical modeling
and remote sensing applications on coarse and moderate
resolution satellite data. For example, the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO, 2007) depended on
reliable estimates from previously published and unpublished
sources to calculate areal estimates for 2000 and 2005 and
applied a fixed annual rate to interpolate between the estimate
dates. Spalding, Kainuma, and Collins (2010) cited an unpub-
262
Figure 3. Schematic diagram of the methodology framework used to map the Philippines’ mangrove areas and analyze spatiotemporal changes from 1990 to
2010.
lished national estimate produced by the FAO. The methods
used to map the spatial distribution of mangrove areas were not
provided; however, it was stated that southern parts of
Mindanao, including the Davao Gulf, were omitted in the
mapping assessment. Long and Giri (2011) and the Philippines’
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR;
2013) produced the most recent national estimates and mapped
the spatial distribution of mangroves for the entire country
based on remote sensing classification techniques performed on
moderate resolution Landsat data for 2000 and 2003.
This study provides the most current and reliable data
regarding the Philippines mangrove area and spatial distribu-
tion and delineates where and when mangrove change has
occurred in recent decades. The results from this study are
useful for developing conservation strategies, biodiversity loss
mitigation efforts, and future monitoring and analysis. Man-
grove geospatial data from this study may be obtained by
contacting the corresponding author.
Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2014
Long et al.
METHODS
Consistent with Long and Giri (2011), remote sensing
classification techniques were performed on Landsat imagery
to delineate the spatial distribution and to assess the areal
extent of mangrove forests at a national scale for 1990 and
2010. Geospatial mangrove data produced by Long and Giri
(2011) for ca. 2000 were implemented in the analysis. A
schematic diagram of methods used in this study is illustrated
in Figure 3.
Satellite Data
Moderate resolution optical satellite data such as Landsat
contain adequate spatial detail to capture mangrove forest
distribution and dynamics (Giri et al., 2011; Giri, Long, and
Tieszen, 2011; Long and Giri, 2011; Myint et al., 2008). We used
Global Land Survey and Landsat data downloaded from the
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation
and Science (EROS) Center’s website (USGS, 2013). Landsat 5
Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic
 Philippines’ Mangrove Assessment
Figure 4. Landsat 7 ETMþ SLC-off imagery (A and B) and gap-fill corrected image (C). (Color for this figure is available in the online version of this paper.)
Mapper Plus (ETMþ) imagery were acquired for the entire
study area ca. two periods: 1990 and 2010. Ideally, only
imagery captured during the two target dates (i.e. 1990 and
2010) would have been used. Certain areas of the Philippines,
however, experience persistent cloud cover. Therefore, multi-
year Landsat images were intermittently required to classify a
single path/row. In total, 47 Landsat path/rows were required
to map the entire study area for each period.
Image Preprocessing
Preprocessing steps included ETMþ gap-filling, band stack-
ing, and suitable area masking. On 31 May 2003, Landsat 7
ETMþ experienced an anomaly that caused the Scan Line
Corrector (SLC) to stop functioning normally, which resulted in
a 22% data loss per scene (USGS, 2010); therefore, additional
preprocessing was required of all Landsat 7 ETMþ SLC-off
imagery used in this study to gap-fill missing data. Two gap-
filling models were implemented for this study. The first model
(M1) required additional Landsat 7 ETMþ imagery (ranging
from one to several scenes) to fill missing data caused by the
SLC failure. The second model (M2) required only one
additional Landsat 5 TM image to fill missing data. Only one
Landsat 5 TM image was needed for M2 because Landsat 5 TM
is free of scan line gaps.
For M1, a gap-filling technique developed by Storey et al.
(2005) was implemented to gap-fill Landsat 7 ETMþ SLC-off
imagery with supplementary Landsat 7 ETMþ SLC-off
imagery (i.e. filler scenes). First, multiple Landsat 7 ETMþ
scenes were aligned to a common frame of reference and gap-
filled by implementing linear least squares regression analysis.
The method was designed for Level 1 terrain-corrected (L1T)
GeoTIFF formatted products; hence, it was only applicable for
gap-filling Landsat 7 ETMþ imagery. The M1 outputs raster
format bands void of gaps (Figure 4).
Following a similar approach by Song and Civco (2002), where
secondary imagery replaced clouds and shadows, we used cloud-
free Landsat 5 TM imagery in M2 to replace Landsat 7 ETMþ
gaps. A conditional statement was implemented to extract the
input pixel values of the Landsat 7 ETMþ image if the pixel
value was greater than zero; however, if the pixel value was zero
(i.e. gaps), the input pixel value from the Landsat 5 TM image
was used to replace the missing data. Similar to M1, the output
of M2 is raster format bands void of gaps.
Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2014
263
Following gap-fill correcting, bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 were
stacked to create a six-band composite image; the thermal band
(i.e. band 6) was excluded because of its coarse spatial
resolution. All composite imagery were subsequently masked
to include only areas where mangroves are most likely to occur
(e.g., low-lying coastal areas and intertidal zones) and exclude
areas where mangroves do not naturally thrive (e.g., far-inland
areas, highlands, freshwater bodies, and open ocean). Addi-
tionally, masking data to an area of interest reduces data
volume and may increase overall classification accuracy by
reducing the amount of land cover types and spectral variation
(Held et al., 2003).
Decision Tree Classification
This study implemented a supervised decision tree classifi-
cation approach on Landsat data to map the spatial distribution
and extent of the Philippines’ mangroves ca. 1990 and 2010.
Training Data
Training classes were generated by selecting a sample of
pixels from each land-cover class (e.g., mangrove, water,
terrestrial nonmangrove). Training areas were selected from
Landsat data and other ancillary data such as high-
resolution imagery from Google Earth, data collected from a
field survey, and land-cover maps. See5 software was used to
construct a decision tree predictive model based on all
Landsat pixel values extracted from digitized training areas.
See5 software is a sophisticated data-mining tool used for
discovering patterns that delineate categories, assembling
them into classifiers, and using them to make predictions
(Rulequest Research, 2011). Consistent with Giri et al.
(2011), Giri, Long, and Tieszen (2011), and Long and Giri
(2011), the classification output is a raster thematic dataset
composed of the three target labels: mangrove, water, and
terrestrial nonmangrove.
For this study, the classification accuracy of the mangrove
class was of most concern; therefore, particular attention was
given to assure high classification accuracy of mangrove. In
areas where mangrove features were misclassified and classi-
fication output was unsatisfactory, we added more training
data, redeveloped the decision tree models, and reapplied the
models to the respective predictor variables. Additionally,
postclassification refinement, where apparent misclassified
pixels were manually reclassified by the interpreter to the
264 Long et al.

Figure 5. Landsat image including 2010 mangrove forest cover (bottom left) on Palawan Island, Philippines, compared with classification results (bottom right).
(Color for this figure is available in the online version of this paper.)

correct class label, was performed to eliminate misclassification
errors. Following refinement, a 333 neighborhood-moving
majority filter was applied to smooth classification results.
Figure 5 illustrates a decision tree classification output of
mangrove. Next, all individual classified imagery were mosa-
icked to produce temporal thematic maps for the entire
country. Finally, a gap analysis was performed by comparing
the national thematic maps with original individual Landsat
imagery to ensure all mangrove areas were included during the
mosaicking process.

Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2014

 Philippines’ Mangrove Assessment 265

Figure 6. Mangrove area by Philippine province in 2010. (Color for this figure is available in the online version of this paper.)

Accuracy Assessment
An accuracy assessment was conducted using a stratified
random sampling design to measure the precision of the 2010
land-cover classification. For each land-cover class, 125 test-site
polygons were selected using very high-resolution satellite
imagery (e.g., IKONOS and QuickBird) from Google Earth as
reference data. All reference data used in the 2010 thematic
accuracy assessment were captured ca. 2010. Test-site polygons
were converted to points stratified at 30 m apart to prevent
double sampling of the mapped data. Next, 1500 stratified
points were randomly selected for each class and compared with
classification results of the 2010 thematic map. Finally, a

Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2014

266 Long et al.

Figure 7. Spatial distribution of mangrove forests of the Philippines in 2010. (Color for this figure is available in the online version of this paper.)

confusion matrix was constructed to cross tabulate the observed
data with the reference data (Congalton, 1991). It was not
possible to conduct an accuracy assessment on the 1990
thematic map because of a lack of high-resolution reference
data.
Mangrove Areal Statistics and Postclassification
Comparison
Mangrove areas were calculated for each coastal province.
First, the 1990 and 2010 thematic mangrove maps produced
from this study, as well the 2000 thematic mangrove data

Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2014

 Philippines’ Mangrove Assessment 267

Figure 8. Mangrove areal change from 1990 to 2010. Green denotes mangrove areal increases and yellow to red denotes mangrove decreases. (Color for this
figure is available in the online version of this paper.)

produced by Long and Giri (2011), were transformed to Albers
Equal Area projection. A geospatial vector dataset containing
the Philippines’ provincial administrative boundaries was used
to extract mangrove areal extent by province for all three time
periods. Additionally, an International Union for Conservation
of Nature (IUCN)-protected areas geospatial dataset was
implemented to extract areal extents of mangrove within
designated protected areas for the three time periods. Once
mangrove areas were calculated for all provinces and protected
areas, change maps were generated by subtracting the

Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2014

268 Long et al.

thematic maps: 2000–1990, 2010–2000, and 2010–1990 (Giri Table 1. Error matrix produced using a stratified random sampling design
and Muhlhausen, 2008). The rate of change was calculated to measure the precision of the 2010 land cover classification.

using the following equation (Puyravaud, 2003):

Province 1990 2000 2010 Change
   
1 Ai2 Agusan del Norte 1935 775 1679 256
rate of change ðRÞ ¼ ln
Aklan 1127 614 1169 43
;
T2  T1 Ai1
Albay 1152 1081 1052 100
where R ¼ rate of deforestation (ha/year); T1 ¼ initial time; T2¼ Antique 987 946 918 69
later time; Ai1 ¼ area at an initial time t1; and Ai2 ¼ area at a Aurora 504 497 490 14
Basilan 7005 7641 5922 1082
later time t2.
Bataan 387 239 172 215
Batangas 540 509 504 36
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Biliran 230 231 335 105
Bohol 9428 9491 8042 1386
Mangrove Extent and Rates of Change Bulacan 455 391 265 190
This study provides the most current and accurate wall-to- Cagayan 5058 5175 4737 322
wall maps depicting the Philippines’ mangrove areal extent Camarines Norte 4145 3628 3538 607
(Figure 6) and spatial distribution (Figure 7). With this new Camarines Sur 5654 5315 5755 102
Camiguin 5 5 5 0
mangrove database of the Philippines, we delineated the Capiz 2156 2000 1924 231
spatial distribution and assessed the areal extent of mangrove Catanduanes 1724 1671 1639 84
forests at a national scale for 1990 and 2010. Spatial analysis of Cavite 34 36 28 5
data produced from this study and data produced from Long Cebu 3532 2894 2634 897
Compostela Valley 138 130 64 74
and Giri (2011) revealed that 66 out of the Philippines’ 82 Davao del Norte 233 196 71 162
provinces contained mangrove during the study period, with Davao del Sur 460 362 216 244
the greatest mangrove forest areas located on Palawan and Davao Oriental 2017 1976 1611 406
Sulu provinces (Table 1) and the largest continuous stand of Dinagat Islands 1672 1655 1672 0
Eastern Samar 6727 5596 6053 674
mangrove in the country (4947 ha) located on the NW coast of
Guimaras 610 577 285 325
Siargao Island, Surigao del Norte. Ilocos Norte 123 128 58 65
A postclassification comparison of the temporal thematic Ilocos Sur 150 229 40 110
maps illustrated where spatial changes in mangrove area Iloilo 1490 1323 1081 409
Isabela 592 592 594 2
occurred from 1990 to 2010 (Figure 8). Fifty-seven provinces
La Union 84 144 44 41
experienced gross decreases in mangrove area during the study Lanao del Norte 1674 1581 1265 409
period, while eight experienced gross increases. Total gross Lanao del Sur 591 620 437 155
mangrove area decreased 10.5% (28,172 ha) at an annual rate Leyte 6260 5807 6130 130
Maguindanao 1040 908 564 476
of 0.52% from 1990 to 2010 (Figure 9), with the greatest areal
Marinduque 2700 2732 2778 78
decreases occurring in the provinces of Zamboanga Sibigay, Masbate 5615 5302 4924 691
Palawan, Zamboanga del Sur, Bohol, and Negros Occidental Metro Manila 47 40 22 25
(Table 1). In greater detail, the most concentrated mangrove Misamis Occidental 2239 2066 1623 617
areal decreases were located within or near Panguil Bay, Misamis Oriental 515 341 280 235
Negros Occidental 4924 4393 3582 1342
Sibuguey Bay, Okayan Bay, and San Antonio Bay. From high- Negros Oriental 2068 2005 1601 468
resolution image interpretation, it appears that the expansion Northern Samar 3176 4287 3601 425
of aquaculture development into mangrove areas was the Occidental Mindoro 2228 1843 1229 999
primary driving force of loss in Panquil Bay and Sibuguey Bay, Oriental Mindoro 3455 2975 2375 1,081
Palawan 58,335 56,261 54,457 3,878
and forest extraction resulted in extensive mangrove loss in Pampanga 125 252 132 8
Okayan Bay and San Antonio Bay. The greatest mangrove Pangasinan 974 1207 207 767
areal increase occurred in Northern Samar following Typoon Quezon 14,917 14,170 14,406 511
Ruping, which struck the Philippines on 10 November 1990, Romblon 979 792 845 134
Samar 10,876 10,141 10,476 401
causing loss of mangrove. Mangrove re-emerged in this area Sarangani 122 93 105 17
following the natural disturbance. Shariff Kabunsuan 948 1019 831 117
Comparison of estimates produced from this study with Siquijor 72 70 46 26
selected historical mangrove areal estimates from Brown and Sorsogon 4064 3896 3881 183
South Cotabato 52 14 10 42
Fischer (1918), FAO (2007), Long and Giri (2011), and Wilkie
Southern Leyte 832 644 446 386
and Fortuna (2003) revealed that total mangrove area Sultan Kudarat 1201 950 1107 94
decreased by over half (51.8% or 259,176 ha) from 1918 to Sulu 21,201 20,565 21,101 101
2010 (Figure 10). The most rapid decrease in mangrove Surigao del Norte 11,913 11,867 11,914 2
Surigao del Sur 8584 5643 8199 385
coverage occurred during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s when
Tawi-Tawi 12,561 11,322 12,345 216
national policies encouraged the expansion of aquaculture Zambales 372 982 217 155
(Primavera, 1995, 2000; Yap, 1999). The estimated annual rate Zamboanga del Norte 2040 1962 1627 413
of decline was approximately 5000 ha during this period. The Zamboanga del Sur 8533 9502 6368 2,165
Zamboanga Sibugay 13,409 13,889 9095 4,315
annual rate of decline has since reduced to approximately 1400
Total 268,996 256,185 240,824 28,172
ha per year from 1990 to 2010.

Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2014

 Philippines’ Mangrove Assessment
Figure 9. Mangrove extent in the Philippines declined 28,172 ha (10.5%)
during the study period.
Protected Areas
The IUCN-protected area management categories are an
important global standard for the planning, establishment, and
management of protected areas (Dudley, 2008). Notably, 20%
(47,483 ha) of the Philippines’ total mangrove area was located
within existing IUCN-protected area networks (categories I–
VI) in 2010, with the majority located on the islands of Palawan
and Siargao. Mangrove area decreased by 2873 ha within
protected areas from 1990 to 2010 (Figure 11), with the greatest
decreases occuring on Palawan. The annual rate of loss of
Figure 10. Mangrove extent decreased by approximately half (51.8%) from
1918 to 2010 in the Philippines (FAO, 2007; Long and Giri, 2011).
Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2014
269
Figure 11. Mangrove extent declined within IUCN IV protected areas by
2873 ha from 1990 to 2010.
mangrove within IUCN-protected areas from 1990 to 2010 was
slightly lower (0.49%) compared with the annual rate of loss for
the entire study area (0.52%).
Accuracy Assessment
An accuracy assessment performed on the 2010 thematic
map indicated high classification accuracy, with a user’s
accuracy of 99% and an overall accuracy of 93% (Table 2).
The majority of misclassification errors occurred where
mangrove areas were incorrectly mapped as water. These
errors likely occurred where water surrounds small (less than
900 m2) mangrove areas. Future mangrove-mapping work
should aim toward reducing these errors by implementing
state-of-the-art mapping methodologies and technologies. For
example, because Landsat pixels contain mixed classes (e.g.,
mangrove and water), it would be appropriate to characterize
these mixed pixels with a continuous field estimate or
proportion of land cover rather than label them with discrete
land-cover types (Huang and Townsend, 2003). Additionally,
classifying high-resolution satellite data (e.g., Worldview-2,
IKONOS, and QuickBird) or aerial photographs would likely
improve mangrove classification accuracy; however, high-
resolution satellite imagery is currently limited spatially and
temporally.
CONCLUSIONS
Though several historical estimates of the Philippines’
mangrove area existed prior to our study, they lacked a
consistent methodology and varied greatly in their report of
extent; few illustrated the spatial distribution of mangrove for
the entire country and were unreliable for change analysis; and
a current national estimate did not exist. Based on the analysis
of remotely sensed satellite observations and digital image
classification techniques, our investigation provides contempo-
rary and accurate data regarding the Philippines mangrove
270
Table 2. Mangrove extent and change (ha) from 1990 to 2010 by Philippine
province.
Reference
Predicted Mangrove Land Water Total User’s %
Mangrove 1249 2 2 1253
Land 42 1456 7 1505
Water 209 42 1491 1742
Total 1500 1500 1500 4500
Producer’s % 83 97 99
Overall
extent and spatial distribution and delineates where and when
mangrove area has changed in recent decades. The results from
this study are useful for developing conservation strategies,
biodiversity loss mitigation efforts, and future monitoring and
analysis. Mangrove geospatial data from this study may be
obtained by contacting the corresponding author.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was performed under USGS contract
G08PC91508. This work was supported by USGS and NASA
Land Cover and Land Use Program and the South Dakota
Space Grant Consortium. Any use of trade, product, or firm
names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply
endorsement by the U.S. Government.
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