Harnessing Big Data to Support the Conservation and Rehabilitation of Mangrove Forests Globally

Thomas A. Worthington* (Corresponding Author), Dominic A. Andradi-Brown, Radhika Bhargava, Christina Buelow, Pete Bunting, Clare Duncan, Lola Fatoyinbo, Daniel A. Friess, Liza Goldberg, Lammert Hilarides, David Lagomasino, Emily Landis, Kate Longley-Wood, Catherine E. Lovelock, Nicholas J. Murray, Siddharth Narayan, Ake Rosenqvist, Michael Sievers, Marc Simard, Nathan ThomasPieter van Eijk, Chris Zganjar, Mark Spalding

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview Articlepeer-review

73 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

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 large-scale mangrove research. This Perspective reviews the role of global-scale research in stimulating policy action and on-the-ground conservation for mangrove ecosystems. We outline the current state of knowledge in terms of global analyses and examine the challenge of translating this research in action.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)429-443
Number of pages15
JournalOne Earth
Volume2
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 22 May 2020

Keywords

  • conservation
  • ecosystem services
  • mangrove
  • policy action
  • rehabilitation
  • remote sensing

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