Mangrove Extent Baseline for Southeast Asia, 1972-1977

Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia are covered by this regional mangrove extent map derived from Landsat 1-2 MSS imagery. It provides a 15,420.51 km² baseline at 30-meter nominal scale, generated using a Random Forest algorithm to analyze long-term mangrove distribution changes. The dataset addresses a historical data gap for the 1970s, prior to widespread Earth Observation data availability.

Use Cases

• Establishing a historical baseline for mangrove loss or gain analysis from the 1970s to 2020.
• Calibrating carbon stock models for biodiverse Southeast Asian mangrove ecosystems.
• Validating regional to global mangrove extent maps for early time periods.
• Assessing coastal land cover change using a machine learning-derived classification.

Strengths

• Provides a specific, algorithmically derived mangrove extent of 15,420.51 km² for a period (1972-1977) with limited historical data.
• Uses a documented machine learning method (Random Forest) on Landsat MSS Tier 2 imagery for consistency.
• Cross-platform presence on datagov and nasa_earthdata signals importance and accessibility.

Limitations

• Conflicting 'last updated' metadata between platforms (2026 vs. 1977) creates uncertainty about data currency.
• Sparse column metadata and unknown row/size details limit understanding of the data's internal structure.
• The provided 60-meter resolution GeoTIFFs are coarser than the nominal 30-meter Landsat scale used in analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Developed from Landsat 1-2 MSS Collection 1 Tier 2 imagery using a Random Forest machine learning algorithm.

Time Range

1972-1977

Freshness

2026-04-10 01:37:48.609613 (from datagov, conflicting with nasa_earthdata date)

Geography

Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia (Southeast Asia)