Wetlands are valuable natural resources that provide many benefits to the environment. Therefore, mapping wetlands is crucially important. Several review papers on remote sensing (RS) of wetlands have been published thus far. However, there is no recent review paper that contains an inclusive description of the importance of wetlands, the urgent need for wetland classification, along with a thorough explanation of the existing methods for wetland mapping using RS methods. This paper attempts to provide readers with an exhaustive review regarding different aspects of wetland studies. First, the readers are acquainted with the characteristics, importance, and challenges of wetlands. Then, various RS approaches for wetland classification are discussed, along with their advantages and disadvantages. These approaches include wetland classification using aerial, multispectral, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and several other data sets. Different pixel-based and object-based algorithms for wetland classification are also explored in this study. The most important conclusions drawn from the literature are that the red edge and near-infrared bands are the best optical bands for wetland delineation. In terms of SAR imagery, large incidence angles, short wavelengths, and horizontal transmission and vertical reception polarization are best for detecting of herbaceous wetlands, while small incidence angles, long wavelengths, and horizontal transmission and reception polarization are appropriate for mapping forested wetlands.

Although wetlands provide valuable services to humans and the environment and cover a large portion of Canada, there is currently no Canada-wide wetland inventory based on the specifications defined by the Canadian Wetland Classification System (CWCS). The most practical approach for creating the Canadian Wetland Inventory (CWI) is to develop a remote sensing method feasible for large areas with the potential to be updated within certain time intervals to monitor dynamic wetland landscapes. Thus, this study aimed to create the first Canada-wide wetland inventory using Landsat-8 imagery and innovative image processing techniques available within Google Earth Engine (GEE). For this purpose, a large amount of field samples and approximately 30,000 Landsat-8 surface reflectance images were initially processed using several advanced algorithms within GEE. Then, the random forest (RF) algorithm was applied to classify the entire country. The final step was an original CWI map considering the five wetland classes defined by the CWCS (i.e., bog, fen, marsh, swamp, and shallow water) and providing updated and comprehensive information regarding the location and spatial extent of wetlands in Canada. The map had reasonable accuracy in terms of both visual and statistical analyses considering the large area of country that was classified (9.985 million km²). The overall classification accuracy and the average producer and user accuracies for wetland classes exclusively were 71%, 66%, and 63%, respectively. Additionally, based on the final classification map, it was estimated that 36% of Canada is covered by wetlands.

In this paper, a scheme is presented for detecting sea ice from Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflectometry (GNSS-R) delay-Doppler maps (DDM). Less spreading along delay and Doppler axes were observed in the DDMs of sea ice relative to those of seawater. This enables us to distinguish sea ice from seawater through studying the values of various DDM observables, which describe the extent of DDM spreading. The area associated with a DDM that results in an observable below or above a threshold value will be classified as covered by sea ice and seawater, respectively. In particular, this study applies an adaptive incoherent summation to each DDM with efforts to increase signal-to-noise ratio and avoid the averaging between DDMs collected over surfaces of different types. Accordingly, an adaptive threshold is employed for the derived observable based on the incoherent summation interval for its corresponding DDM. The proposed sea ice detection method is tested with five different DDM observables. Through comparing DDM observable-based detection results with ground-truth sea ice data, the feasibility of this method is validated with an accuracy of up to 99.73% based on the pixel number observable.

Ocean wind and wave parameters can be measured by in-situ sensors such as anemometers and buoys. Since the 1980s, X-band marine radar has evolved as one of the remote sensing instruments for such purposes since its sea surface images contain considerable wind and wave information. The maturity and accuracy of X-band marine radar wind and wave measurements have already enabled relevant commercial products to be used in real-world applications. The goal of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the state of the art algorithms for ocean wind and wave information extraction from X-band marine radar data. Wind measurements are mainly based on the dependence of radar image intensities on wind direction and speed. Wave parameters can be obtained from radar-derived wave spectra or radar image textures for non-coherent radar and from surface radial velocity for coherent radar. In this review, the principles of the methodologies are described, the performances are compared, and the pros and cons are discussed. Specifically, recent developments for wind and wave measurements are highlighted. These include the mitigation of rain effects on wind measurements and wave height estimation without external calibrations. Finally, remaining challenges and future trends are discussed.