Multispectral instruments such as Landsat and ASTER have been proven in Belize, where Cherrington et al. aimed to measure at change in mangrove extent over multiple decades (see link to technical report from 2010). Spatial resolutions here ranged from 30m (Landsat's multispectral bands ranging from blue to near-infrared) to 15m (ASTER's green, red, and near-infrared channels). In brief, spectral mixture analysis allowed for the identification of mangroves. It should be noted that a detailed baseline mangrove map that included extensive field reports provided a reference for validation.

Globally, Giri et al. (2011) mapped mangroves using Landsat as well (30 m spatial resolution).

To identify dominant species (or to distinguish one species from the next), greater spectral resolution would be needed. Unfortunately, while the MODIS and MERIS instruments have better spectral resolution than instruments like Landsat and ASTER, their spatial resolution is lacking (~250m - 1km) for the fine level of detail that mangrove mapping requires. Hyperion is a hyperspectral instrument on board the Earth Observing-1 satellite and provides 30m spatial resolution, but the signal to noise ratio can limit its utility.

http://maps.cathalac.org/Downloads/data/bz/bz_mangroves_1980-2010_highres.pdf

Sir in case of small area WorldView-2 is best option to monitor tree diversity. It provides 8 spectral bands with 0.5m and 2m spatial resolutions. If your area of interest is huge, you can work in RapidEye having 8spectral bands and 5m spatial resolution.

You can read papers from Proisy C. He is a remote sensing specialist of Mangroves.

Having worked with casi hyperspectral airborne data for mangrove species (unpublished consultancy work), I'd add the following, you can discriminate genus such as Rhizophora from Bruguiera easily enough (different canopy architecture and different leaf level reflectance) however different Bruguiera species were indistinguishable. Given the high cost of airborne acquisition I'd opt for WV2 over airborne hyperspectral.

If you want very high quality and high resolution datas, and if your budget is in between Satellite images and Airborne acquisition, you can contact this company:

http://www.lavionjaune.fr/index_en.html

They are very professional. We worked with them in French Guiana and they provided very good datas. They design and use small aerial vehicles like UAVs or drones with high quality sensors and a perfect post-processing work. Of course it is costly to move hardware + team on the experimental spot, but it is less costly than a plane, and it is more flexible.

Thabnks for the advice.

Vic K.