Towards Comprehensive and Dynamic Characterization of Global Aquatic Land Cover

Aquatic ecosystem is one of the most important ecosystems on Earth, providing essential ecosystem services to humans and the environment. In the context of globally increasing water demands, climate change, and rapid land use changes, it is more critical to monitor the aquatic ecosystem than ever. The heterogeneous and dynamic nature of aquatic land cover makes it challenging to be characterized using remote sensing approaches. Existing global products are mainly focused on open water areas, while the cover types and surface water dynamics in vegetated aquatic areas have always been under-represented, calling for a specific need to improve global aquatic land cover mapping. The main objective of this PhD project is to characterize global aquatic land cover comprehensively and dynamically utilizing emerging earth observation opportunities, built upon a full understanding of user needs and the suitability of existing global datasets.