Coastal wetlands mapping is a big challenge in remote sensing fields because of similar spectrum of different ground objects and their severe fragmentation and spatial heterogeneity. In this article, we propose a hyperspectral image transformer iN transformer (HSI-TNT) method for mapping coastal wetlands on ZiYuan1-02D (ZY1-02D) hyperspectral images, which uses two transformer deep networks to fuse local and global features. First, we put forward the idea that each hyperspectral pixel can be considered as a superpixel in spectral dimension, and subsequent position encodings are employed aiming to retain spatial information. After that, in each HSI-TNT block, the local information between pixels is extracted by inner T-Block, and added to the patch space by linear transformation to extract the global information by outer T-Block. Finally, the stacked HSI-TNT block, also known as HSI-TNT framework, is used for classification and mapping. Experimental results show that HSI-TNT achieves the best results on both Yancheng and Yellow River Delta wetlands data, with overall classification accuracy of 95.57% and 93.69%, respectively. The HSI-TNT combined with ZY1-02D satellite hyperspectral data has huge potentials in mapping coastal wetlands.

Deep learning has emerged as a powerful method for hyperspectral image (HSI) classification. However, a significant prerequisite for HSI classification using deep learning is enough labeled samples, which is both time-consuming and labor-intensive. Yet, labeled samples are essential for training deep learning models. This paper proposes an HSI classification method based on the self-supervised learning of spectral masking (SSLSM). The method mainly includes two steps: self-supervised pre-training and fine-tuning. First, considering the rich spectral information of HSI, we propose masked spectral reconstruction as the pretext task. The unmasked data is input into the encoder and decoder sequentially, which are composed of a multi-layer transformer, for feature learning for masked spectral reconstruction. Second, we use reference samples to fine-tune the network, and the encoder and decoder are innovatively cascaded for deep semantic feature extraction, which can further improve the ability of feature extraction in the downstream classification tasks. Experiment results show that, compared with other methods, the SSLSM obtains the highest classification accuracy of 96.52%, 97.03%, and 96.70% on the Indian Pines dataset, Pavia University dataset, and Yancheng Wetlands dataset, respectively. Our method can also be applied to other HSI datasets, and the codes will be available from https://github.com/CIRSM-GRoup/2023-TGRS-SSLSM.

Aboveground biomass (AGB) serves as a crucial indicator of the carbon sequestration capacity of coastal wetland ecosystems. Conducting extensive field surveys in coastal wetlands is both time-consuming and labor-intensive. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and satellite remote sensing have been widely utilized to estimate regional AGB. However, the mixed pixel effects in satellite remote sensing hinder the precise estimation of AGB, while high-spatial resolution UAVs face challenges in estimating large-scale AGB. To fill this gap, this study proposed an integrated approach for estimating AGB using field sampling, a UAV, and Sentinel-2 satellite data. Firstly, based on multispectral data from the UAV, vegetation indices were computed and matched with field sampling data to develop the Field–UAV AGB estimation model, yielding AGB results at the UAV scale (1 m). Subsequently, these results were upscaled to the Sentinel-2 satellite scale (10 m). Vegetation indices from Sentinel-2 data were calculated and matched to establish the UAV–Satellite AGB model, enabling the estimation of AGB over large regional areas. Our findings revealed the AGB estimation model achieved an R² value of 0.58 at the UAV scale and 0.74 at the satellite scale, significantly outperforming direct modeling from field data to satellite (R² = −0.04). The AGB densities of the wetlands in Xieqian Bay, Meishan Bay, and Hangzhou Bay, Zhejiang Province, were 1440.27 g/m², 1508.65 g/m², and 1545.11 g/m², respectively. The total AGB quantities were estimated to be 30,526.08 t, 34,219.97 t, and 296,382.91 t, respectively. This study underscores the potential of integrating UAV and satellite remote sensing for accurately assessing AGB in large coastal wetland regions, providing valuable support for the conservation and management of coastal wetland ecosystems.

In the era of global climate change, extreme weather events frequently occur. Many kinds of agro-meteorological disasters that are closely related to environmental conditions (such as sunshine hours, temperature, precipitation, etc.) are witnessed all over the word. However, which factor dominates winter wheat production in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River remains unresolved. Quantifying the key limiting meteorological factor could deepen our understanding of the impact of climate change on crops and then help us to formulate disaster prevention and mitigation measures. However, the relative role of precipitation, sunshine hours and maximum daily temperature in limiting winter wheat yield in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River is not clear and difficult to decouple. In this study, we used statistical methods to quantify the effect of precipitation, maximum temperature and sunshine hours extremes on winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) yield based on long time-series, county-level yield data and a daily meteorological dataset. According to the winter wheat growing season period (October of the sowing year to May of the following year), anomaly values of cumulative precipitation, average sunshine hours and average daily maximum temperature are calculated. With the range of −3 σ to 3 σ of anomaly and an interval of 0.5 σ (σ is the corresponding standard deviation of cumulative precipitation, mean maximum temperature and mean sunshine hours, respectively), the corresponding weighted yield loss ratio (WYLR) represents the impact of this kind of climate condition on yield. The results show that excessive rainfall is the key limiting meteorological factor that can reduce winter wheat yield to −18.4% in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, while it is only −0.24% in extreme dry conditions. Moreover, yield loss under extreme temperature and sunshine hours are negligible (−0.66% for extremely long sunshine hours and −8.29% for extreme cold). More detailed analysis results show that the impact of excessive rainfall on winter wheat yield varies regionally, as it causes severe yield reductions in the Huai River basin and the middle to southern part with low elevation and rainy areas of the study area, while for drier areas in the Hubei province, there is even an increase in yield. Our results disclosed with observational evidence that excessive precipitation is the key meteorological limiting factor leading to the reduction in winter wheat yield in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The knowledge of the possible impact of climate change on winter wheat yield in the study area allows policy-makers, agronomists and economists to better forecast a plan that differs from the past. In addition, our results emphasized the need for better understanding and further process-based model simulation of the excessive rainfall impact on crop yield.

The main feature of grassland degradation is the change in the vegetation community structure. Hyperspectral-based grassland community identification is the basis and a prerequisite for large-area high-precision grassland degradation monitoring and management. To obtain the distribution pattern of grassland communities in Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, we propose a systematic classification method (SCM) for hyperspectral grassland community identification using China’s ZiYuan 1-02D (ZY1-02D) satellite. First, the sample label data were selected from the field-collected samples, vegetation map data, and function zoning data for the Nature Reserve. Second, the spatial features of the images were extracted using extended morphological profiles (EMPs) based on the reduced dimensionality of principal component analysis (PCA). Then, they were input into the random forest (RF) classifier to obtain the preclassification results for grassland communities. Finally, to reduce the influence of salt-and-pepper noise, the label similarity probability filter (LSPF) method was used for postclassification processing, and the RF was again used to obtain the final classification results. The results showed that, compared with the other seven (e.g., SVM, RF, 3D-CNN) methods, the SCM obtained the optimal classification results with an overall classification accuracy (OCA) of 94.56%. In addition, the mapping results of the SCM showed its ability to accurately identify various ground objects in large-scale grassland community scenes.

The pursuit of super-resolution (SR) with large upscaling factors such as 8×, for enhancing the spatial resolution of low-resolution (LR) remote sensing images is a persistent and challenging problem. To address this issue, we propose the Progressive Feature Enhancement SR (PFESR) network with an 8× upscaling factor. Given the limited high-frequency information provided by a single LR image, we propose an improved style transfer technology to generate auxiliary details that aid in the recovery of high-resolution (HR) images. Additionally, multi-scale texture features are extracted through the Visual Geometry Group (VGG) feature extraction (VFE) block. To efficiently fuse various features, we combine hard and soft attention mechanisms. Finally, we use a hierarchical fusion block to address the progressive fusion problem of multiple scale features. Experiments on three datasets demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance and exhibits good robustness in 8× and higher scale SR tasks.