Key Title GIS & Remote Sensing Remote Sensing and Global Environmental Change (original) (raw)

Citation: Toward a Coordinated Global Observing System for Seagrasses and Marine Macroalgae

Frontiers in Marine Science, 2019

In coastal waters around the world, the dominant primary producers are benthic macrophytes, including seagrasses and macroalgae, that provide habitat structure and food for diverse and abundant biological communities and drive ecosystem processes. Seagrass meadows and macroalgal forests play key roles for coastal societies, contributing to fishery yields, storm protection, biogeochemical cycling and storage, and important cultural values. These socio-economically valuable services are threatened worldwide by human activities, with substantial areas of seagrass and macroalgal forests lost over the last half-century. Tracking the status and trends in marine macrophyte cover and quality is an emerging priority for ocean and coastal management, but doing so has been challenged by limited coordination across the numerous efforts to monitor macrophytes, which vary widely in goals, methodologies, scales, capacity, governance approaches, and data availability. Here, we present a consensus assessment and recommendations on the current state of and opportunities for advancing global marine macrophyte observations, integrating contributions from a community of researchers with broad geographic and disciplinary expertise. With the increasing scale of human impacts, the time is ripe to harmonize marine macrophyte observations by building on existing networks and identifying a core set of common metrics and approaches in sampling design, field measurements, governance, capacity building, and data management. We recommend a tiered observation system, with improvement of remote sensing and remote underwater imaging to expand capacity to capture broad-scale extent at intervals of several years, coordinated with stratified in situ sampling annually to characterize the key variables of cover and taxonomic or functional group composition, and to provide ground-truth. A robust networked system of macrophyte observations will be facilitated by establishing best practices, including standard protocols, documentation, and sharing of resources at all stages of workflow, and secure archiving of open-access data. Because such a network is necessarily distributed, sustaining it depends on close engagement of local stakeholders and focusing on building and long-term maintenance of local capacity, particularly in the developing world. Realizing these recommendations will produce more effective, efficient, and responsive observing, a more accurate global picture of change in vegetated coastal systems, and stronger international capacity for sustaining observations.

Sourcebook on Remote Sensing and Biodiversity Indicators

... Jon Hutton, Director, UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre Teresa Fryberger, Program Director, Applied Science Program, Earth Science Division, NASA ... 9 .1 The 010 biodiversity target framework: focal areas, goals, and subtargets ..... ...

A REVIEW OF APPLICATIONS OF EARTH-OBSERVING SYSTEMS IN ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Applications of space technology through the use of earth observing systems in environmental resources management have increasingly assumed a global perspective. This has resulted in an increased interest in monitoring of the earth’s surface at a small scale, and a growing commitment for nations of the world to develop the required technology. This paper therefore focuses on applications of space technologies towards the sustainable management of environmental resources. The concepts of space technology, remote sensing, Geographic Information Systems and Forest Resources Management were clearly defined. In addition, the importance and scope of space technology in environmental resources management are elucidated in this paper. Furthermore, this paper elucidates the importance of earth-observing system infrastructure for sustainable environmental management in Nigeria. In addition, alternate methods of interpreting remotely sensed data for biomass measurement are also discussed here. Finally, conclusions and recommendations are provided. KEYWORDS: Earth- Observing Systems, Space technology, remote sensing, Geographical Information Systems, environmental resources management, forest resources management, land-use change detection.