Spatiotemporal Distribution of Mangrove at Kuala Sepetang Forest Reserve, Malaysia, Using Remotely Sensed Data

Mangrove plays an important role in mitigating the impact of climate change by sequestering CO2 as the main greenhouse gas emission. They maintain water quality and clarity, filtering pollutants and trapping sediments originating from land. However, mangroves have been reported to be threatened by land conversion for other activities. The objectives of this chapter were: (1) to derive Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in the study area and (2) to map the status of the mangrove species distribution from year 2004 to 2019. Matang Mangrove Forest Reserves (MMFR) at Kuala Sepetang, Perak, Malaysia were determined using multi-temporal satellite imageries by Landsat TM and Sentinel-2 from year 2004 to 2019. The classification of land use land cover (LULC) was performed using the ISODATA Clustering method and Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MCL) method along with vegetation index differencing technique. The overall classification accuracy was 90% with Kappa statistic accuracy of 0.89. The results indicated changes in area of the mangrove forest to a cleared area occurred at 1340.01–1666.30 ha. (2004–2019). Combinations of these approaches were useful for change detection and an indication of the nature of these changes. The result also revealed that Rhizophora apiculata and Avicennia sonneratia are still being preserved and estimated to be 70% of the total species. Temporal changes of mangrove species for the 15–period showed that the mangrove species of R. apiculata was 58%, A. sonneratia was 6%, Bruguiera parviflora 8% and other mangrove species 28% in year 2019 as compared to 2004 in which R. apiculata was 71%, A. Sonneratia 6%, B. parviflora 10% and other mangrove species 14%. The findings indicated that the status and loss of mangroves due to direct impacts from surrounding land development activities.