Distribution and invasion of Spartina alterniflora within the Jiaozhou Bay monitored by remote sensing image

Spartina alterniflora as an alien invasive plant, poses a serious threat to the ecological functions of the coastal wetland of the Jiaozhou Bay. As of 2019, the distribution area of S. alterniflora in the Jiaozhou Bay has reached more than 500 hm2. For this reason, combined with field surveys, remote sensing monitoring of the invasion S. alterniflora in the Jiaozhou Bay has been carried out. To accurately identify S. alterniflora within the Jiaozhou Bay coastal wetland, we used a new method which is an implement of deep convolutional neural network, and by which we got a higher accuracy than the traditional method. Based on distribution of S. alterniflora extracted by the proposed method, the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of S. alterniflora were analyzed. And then combined with environmental factors, the invasion mechanism of S. alterniflora in the Jiaozhou Bay was analyzed in detail. From the monitoring results, it can be seen that S. alterniflora in Jiaozhou Bay is mainly distributed in the beaches near the Yanghe River Estuary and its southern side, the Dagu River Estuary and the Nügukou. Spartina alterniflora first broke out near the Yanghe River Estuary and gradually spread to the tidal flats near the Nügukou. The Dagu River Estuary is dominated by S. anglica, whose area has not changed much over the years, and a small amount of S. alterniflora has invaded later.