Time series sentinel-1 SAR data for the mapping of aquaculture ponds in coastal Asia

The farming of aquatic organisms, such as fish, shrimp and mollusks has experienced considerable growth during the past 30 years. In this study, we present a method for the derivation of aquaculture ponds from high resolution SAR time series data and its potential for the approximation of aquaculture harvest volume. The Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission allows continuous high resolution radar mapping, enabling the exploitation of large data volume. Open source thresholding and segmentation algorithms were applied to extract aquaculture ponds from Sentinel-1 time series data based on object and shape metrics. With the collection of statistical and in-situ data this study estimated production for the detected aquaculture areas. In the view of its growing importance for nutrition and future food security, earth observation holds great potential as a helping tool for the sustainable management of aquaculture and estimation of pond production.