If your ultimate objective is to classify different mangrove communities, drones can be used to accomplish this. Drones are equipped with sensors, so they can create maps from above. The question at hand, however, is what kind of sensor technology is most appropriate for this use. Because the drone platform allows you to choose what can be mounted as a sensor. Using an RGB camera is among the most popular choices. Mounting a Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensor system is one of the alternative options. But you might think as to which sensor would be most useful to me.

A recent study found that, when compared to LiDAR, the RGB camera is relatively better at identifying mangrove communities. However, the same study recommends a combination approach using both RGB camera and LiDAR if one wishes to achieve even higher performances. It is merging data from both active and passive remote sensing.