Suchergebnisse

The research explores an Earth Observation (EO) application with the enterprise Green Keeper Africa (GKA) based in Cotonou, Benin, that addresses the management of an invasive plant species that threatens economic activities such as fishing, transportation and irrigation. GKA pays local community members to harvest the water hyacinth and transform it into a product that absorbs oil-based waste. The EO application is an online observatory and decision support tool that utilizes satellite, aerial and ground data to map the location of the water hyacinth and a fish farming practice known as "acadja" over time, providing valuable information for government, private and public users. The acadja analysis is relevant due to the adverse effects on water quality that the practice results in. This paper is a follow up on the work presented in the 2019 contribution to IAC session B1.5 by the authors. New research in this paper includes (i) improved and validated remote sensing algorithms for monitoring water hyacinth extent, (ii) trend analysis and forecasting of water hyacinth growth with other environmental data sets, (iii) improved and validated remote sensing algorithms for identifying and quantifying acadja and (iv) analysis of water quality parameters describing the coastal ecosystem.

Mangrove forests are found on sheltered coastlines in tropical, subtropical, and some warm temperate regions. These forests support unique biodiversity and provide a range of benefits to coastal communities, but as a result of large-scale conversion for aquaculture, agriculture, and urbanization, mangroves are considered increasingly threatened ecosystems. Scientific advances have led to accurate and comprehensive global datasets on mangrove extent, structure, and condition, and these can support evaluation of ecosystem services and stimulate greater conservation and rehabilitation efforts. To increase the utility and uptake of these products, in this Perspective we provide an overview of these recent and forthcoming global datasets and explore the challenges of translating these new analyses into policy action and on the ground conservation. We describe a new platform for visualizing and disseminating these datasets to the global science community, non-governmental organizations, government officials, and rehabilitation practitioners and highlight future directions and collaborations to increase the uptake and impact of largescale mangrove research.