Analysis of Field Seagrass Percent Cover and Aboveground Carbon Stock Data for Non-Destructive Aboveground Seagrass Carbon Stock Mapping Using Worldview-2 Image

Remote sensing can make seagrass aboveground carbon stock (AGCseagrass) information spatially extensive and widely available. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a rapid approach to estimate AGCseagrass in the field to train and assess its remote sensing-based mapping. The aim of this research is to (1) analyze the Percent Cover (PCv)-AGCseagrass relationship in seagrass at the species and community levels to estimate AGCseagrass from PCv and (2) perform AGCseagrass mapping at both levels using WorldView-2 image and assess the accuracy of the resulting map. This research was conducted in Karimunjawa and Kemujan Islands, Indonesia. Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification was used to map seagrass species composition, and stepwise regression was used to model AGCseagrass using deglint, water column corrected, and principle component bands. The results were a rapid AGCseagrass estimation using an easily measured parameter, the seagrass PCv. At the community level, the AGCseagrass map had 58.79% accuracy (SEE Combining double low line 5.41 g C m−2), whereas at the species level, the accuracy increased for the class Ea (64.73%, SEE Combining double low line 6.86 g C m−2) and EaThCr (70.02%, SEE Combining double low line 4.32 g C m−2) but decreased for ThCr (55.08%, SEE Combining double low line 2.55 g C m−2). The results indicate that WorldView-2 image reflectance can accurately map AGCseagrass in the study area in the range of 15–20 g C m−2 for Ea, 10–15 g C m−2 for EaThCr, and 4–8 g C m−2 for ThCr. Based on our model, the AGCseagrass in the study area was estimated at 13.39 t C.