Wetlands of coastal Gabon provide many ecosystems services including flood protection, water purification and wildlife habitat. Effective sustainable management of this coastal zone is hindered by a lack of accurate wetland maps. Here we describe a novel method used to map the wetland ecosystems of nearly 100 000 km² of wetland and upland habitat mosaic in the delta of the Ogooué River using an object‐based classification of optical and radar satellite imagery based on training data collected from unmanned aerial vehicle and a post‐classification accuracy assessment using helicopter‐based video. We identified 15 land cover classes, of which nine were wetland. A stratified random sample accuracy assessment of the final classification yielded an overall accuracy of 0.80. Despite the important role that wetland habitats play for wildlife and ecosystem functioning across the region, our results indicate these wetlands cover only 22% of the project area. As expected, most of the wetland habitats are found close to major water bodies, including the Ogooué River, estuaries near the cities of Libreville and Port Gentil and coastal lagoons to the south of these cities. When considering the six Wetlands of International Importance designated under the Ramsar Convention within the project area, only 33% of mapped wetlands fall within the Ramsar site boundaries and only 10% of mapped wetlands fall within protected areas. Furthermore, within the Ramsar sites, only 31% of the land cover was classified as wetland. In order to better manage these wetland resources, more effective Ramsar boundaries would include the extensive wetland habitats found along the coast from Port Gentil south to Loango National Park. These data are now available for managers to improve wetland management within designated Ramsar sites and improving protection designations for vulnerable habitats, for example by protecting wetland connectivity and other ecosystem processes.

中文翻译：

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在加蓬绘制复杂的沿海湿地马赛克图，以进行明智的生态系统管理：使用基于对象的分类

加蓬沿海湿地提供许多生态系统服务，包括防洪，水净化和野生生物栖息地。缺乏准确的湿地地图阻碍了对这一沿海地区的有效可持续管理。在这里，我们描述了一种用于绘制近10万km ²湿地生态系统图的新方法使用基于对象的光学和雷达卫星图像分类，基于从无人机上收集的训练数据，并使用基于直升机的视频进行分类后精度评估，对奥古韦河三角洲的湿地和高地栖息地马赛克进行了评估。我们确定了15个土地覆盖类别，其中9个是湿地。最终分类的分层随机样本准确性评估得出整体准确性为0.80。尽管湿地栖息地在整个地区的野生生物和生态系统功能中发挥着重要作用，但我们的结果表明，这些湿地仅占项目面积的22％。正如预期的那样，大多数湿地栖息地都靠近主要水体，包括奥古韦河，利伯维尔市和吉蒂尔港附近的河口以及这些城市以南的沿海泻湖。当考虑项目区域内《拉姆萨尔公约》指定的六个国际重要湿地时，只有33％的湿地属于拉姆萨尔遗址，而只有10％的湿地属于保护区。此外，在拉姆萨尔湿地中，只有31％的土地被归类为湿地。为了更好地管理这些湿地资源，更有效的拉姆萨尔边界将包括从Gentil港南部到Loango国家公园沿岸的大量湿地栖息地。这些数据现在可供管理人员使用，以改善指定的拉姆萨尔湿地内的湿地管理，并通过保护湿地连通性和其他生态系统过程来改善对脆弱生境的保护名称。