SAR Data for Monitoring Rapidly Changing Ecosystems: Aquaculture and Urbanization in the Cần Giờ Mangrove Biosphere Reserve, South Vietnam

The Cần Giờ Mangrove, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in Southern Vietnam, experienced significant mangrove losses as a result of aquaculture conversion and urbanization development. Here we exploit SAR multi-sensor and multi-temporal data integrating field measurements to map rapidly land cover changes focusing on aquaculture and built-up areas. Cosmo-SkyMed and Sentinel-1 SAR data are used in synergies with PRISMA hyperspectral data to develop data analytics able to capture land fragmentation and to obtain new land use and land cover thematic products. Overall, SAR image-derived products demonstrate good agreement with the in situ observations, highlighting advances in aquaculture structure detection. An overall synthesis analysis to understand the dynamics of changes over the rural-urban continuum provides advanced insights into processes that may exacerbate impacts on the biophysical and socio-economic systems across multiple land cover and land use sectors.