Mangrove Vegetation Health Assessment Based on Remote Sensing Indices for Tanjung Piai, Malay Peninsular

Mangroves critically require conservation activity due to human encroachment and environmental unsustainability. The forests must be conserving through monitoring activities with an application of remote sensing satellites. Recent high-resolution multispectral satellite was used to produce Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Tasselled Cap transformation (TC) indices mapping for the area. Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT) SPOT-6 was employed for ground truthing. The area was only a part of mangrove forest area of Tanjung Piai which estimated about 106 ha. Although, the relationship between the spectral indices and dendrometry parameters was weak, we found a very significant between NDVI (mean) and stem density (y=10.529x + 12.773) with R2=0.1579. The sites with NDVI calculated varied from 0.10 to 0.26 (P1 and P2), under the environmental stress due to sand deposition found was regard as unhealthy vegetation areas. Whereas, site P5 with NDVI (mean) 0.67 is due to far distance from risk wave’s zone, therefore having young/growing trees with large lush green cover was regard as healthy vegetation area. High greenness indicated in TC means, the bands respond to a combination of high absorption of chlorophyll in the visible bands and the high reflectance of leaf structures in the near-infrared band, which is characteristic of healthy green vegetation. Overall, our study showed our tested WV-2 image combined with ground data provided valuable information of mangrove health assessment for Tanjung Piai, Johor, Malay Peninsula.