The San Rossore Natural Park, located on the Tuscany (Italy) coast, has been utilized over the last 10 years
for many remote sensing campaigns devoted to coastal zone monitoring. A wet area is located in the
south-west part of the Natural Park and it is characterized by a system of ponds and dunes formed by
sediment deposition occurring at the Arno River estuary.
The considerable amount of collected data has permitted us to investigate the evolution of wetland
spreading and land coverage as well as to retrieve relevant biogeochemical parameters, e.g. green biomass,
from remote sensing images and products. This analysis has proved that the monitoring of coastal
wetlands, characterized by shallow waters, moor and dunes, demands dedicated aerospace sensors with
high spatial and spectral resolution.
The outcomes of the processing of images gathered during several remote sensing campaigns by airborne
and spaceborne hyperspectral sensors are presented and discussed. A particular effort has been devoted
to sensor response calibration and data validation due to the complex heterogeneity of the observed
natural surfaces.