Along the tidal margins where land and sea negotiate their boundaries, a persistent problem has shadowed humanity's effort to understand coastal carbon: the very water that defines these wetlands distorts the instruments we use to measure them. A research team spanning institutions in China and Hong Kong has answered this paradox with MINI, a hyperspectral index that reads vegetation through visible light rather than moisture-sensitive infrared signals, offering a more faithful portrait of saltmarsh ecosystems at a moment when their fate carries global consequence.