BioSCape: Coastal Wetland Vegetation and Habitat Maps for South Africa

64 coastal wetland plots in South Africa contain detailed vegetation species occurrence, percent cover, salinity, and ground temperature data collected in late 2023. Habitat extent maps for salt marsh, submerged aquatic vegetation, and reeds & sedges were created for 84 estuaries using PlanetScope satellite imagery classified with a U-Net algorithm. These data were collected by the NASA-led BioSCape project to support analysis of airborne imaging spectroscopy and LiDAR.

Use Cases

• Training habitat classification models based on satellite imagery and in-situ plot labels.
• Analyzing relationships between vegetation species, cover, and environmental factors like salinity.
• Mapping the spatial distribution of three key coastal wetland habitat classes.
• Validating airborne imaging spectroscopy (AVIRIS-NG) data with ground-truth vegetation measurements.

Strengths

• Includes 64 vegetation plots with 42 species identifications per plot.
• Provides habitat maps for 84 estuaries across the Greater Cape Floristic Region.
• Data collection follows standardized protocols designed for multi-team comparability.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Habitat classification represents a single point in time (December 2023-January 2024).
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

NASA-led BioSCape project.

Collection Method

In-situ plot surveys and PlanetScope satellite imagery classified with a U-Net semantic segmentation algorithm.

Time Range

Plot data: October-November 2023; Habitat maps: December 2023-January 2024.

Freshness

Field data was collected in October-November 2023; habitat maps represent December 2023-January 2024.

Geography

South Africa, specifically estuaries in the Greater Cape Floristic Region including Swartvlei Estuary and Langebaan Lagoon.