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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ESSDD</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>Earth System Science Data Discussions</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ESSDD</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">1866-3591</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name></publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/essd-2026-356</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>RFDTM: A national-scale and wall-to-wall 30 m resolution mangrove sub-canopy topography dataset for New Zealand derived from ICESat-2 ATLAS and multi-band SAR</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wang</surname>
<given-names>Yunqiu</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Huang</surname>
<given-names>Jiapeng</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5722-1064</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhang</surname>
<given-names>Yue</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wang</surname>
<given-names>Yuhao</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Chen</surname>
<given-names>Chunpeng</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhang</surname>
<given-names>Hongsheng</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>He</surname>
<given-names>Bohao</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5772-0960</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Chen</surname>
<given-names>Jihong</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff7">
<sup>7</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Li</surname>
<given-names>Qingquan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff9">
<sup>9</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Xu</surname>
<given-names>Nan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff9">
<sup>9</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>School of Geomatics, Liaoning Technical University, Fuxin 123000, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Polytechnic University of Milan, 20133 Milan, Italy</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>College of Management, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518071, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff7">
<label>7</label>
<addr-line>Shenzhen International Maritime Institute, Shenzhen, 518083, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff8">
<label>8</label>
<addr-line>MNR Key Laboratory for Geo-Environmental Monitoring of Great Bay Area, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Urban Informatics, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Spatial Smart Sensing and Services, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff9">
<label>9</label>
<addr-line>School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>15</day>
<month>06</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>34</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Yunqiu Wang et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-356/">This article is available from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-356/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-356/essd-2026-356.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-356/essd-2026-356.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Mangrove sub-canopy topography plays a critical role in coastal hydrological processes, blue carbon storage, ecosystem stability, and inundation vulnerability under sea-level rise. However, existing global Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) often contain large elevation uncertainties and data gaps in mangrove regions because dense canopy cover limits the penetration capability of conventional remote sensing observations, resulting in incomplete and inaccurate representations of sub-canopy terrain. To address this critical data deficiency, we present RFDTM, a large-scale mangrove sub-canopy topography dataset for New Zealand at 30 m spatial resolution generated entirely from publicly available satellite observations. The dataset was developed by integrating ICESat-2 photon-counting LiDAR data with dual-frequency C-band and L-band SAR observations. First, a Hierarchical Multi-Constraint Filtering (HMCF) strategy was employed to extract reliable ground photons and improve the reliability of terrain elevation estimates beneath dense canopies. Subsequently, multi-source terrain and vegetation features were constructed and optimized within a Random Forest regression framework to reconstruct continuous sub-canopy topography and generate the RFDTM product. Validation against airborne LiDAR terrain data across all mangrove regions of New Zealand demonstrates excellent performance, with an R&amp;sup2; of 0.99, RMSE of 1.01 m, MAE of 0.80 m, and bias of 0.43 m, fully satisfying the accuracy requirements for regional-scale applications. Ablation experiments further confirm the critical contribution of L-band SAR observations, reducing the RMSE from 1.23 m to 1.01 m and substantially enhancing sub-canopy penetration capability. Overall, RFDTM represents the first large-scale mangrove sub-canopy topography product derived solely from open-access satellite data, while the proposed methodology provides a transferable and readily applicable framework for global coastal vulnerability assessment, ecosystem monitoring, and carbon cycle studies.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="34"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Natural Science Foundation of China</funding-source>
<award-id>42401488, 42571378, 42571520, 42071351</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>National Key Research and Development Program of China</funding-source>
<award-id>2020YFA0608501, 2017YFB0504204</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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