Wetlands

Lack of data, appropriate information and challenges in human and institutional capacity put a serious constraint on effective monitoring and management of wetlands in Africa. Conventional data are often lacking in time or space, of poor quality or available at locations that are not necessarily representative for wetlands. Therefore, the Ramsar secretariat, the global coordinating body of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, has long recommended making more use of new and innovative technologies, such as those offered by remote sensing. Yet, access to suitable remote sensing data for monitoring wetlands in Africa has also traditionally been constrained either because of high costs or, especially in Equatorial Africa, owing to frequent cloud cover. To meet these challenges the European Space Agency has launched GlobWetland Africa as a major initiative to facilitate the exploitation of satellite observations for the conservation, wiseuse and effective management of wetlands in Africa and to provide African stakeholders with the necessary EO methods and tools to better fulfil their commitments and obligations towards the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.

The main objective of GlobWetland Africa (GW-A) is to provide the major actors involved in the implementation of the Ramsar Convention of Wetlands in Africa with EO methods and tools to better assess the conditions of wetlands under their areas of jurisdiction/study, and to better monitor their trends over time. To this end, an open source wetland observing system, referred to as the GW-A Toolbox, will be developed, implemented and validated for a series of geo-information products over a number of representative pilot sites in North, West, Central and East Africa. The GW-A toolbox unifies proven and stable open source software into a single graphical user interface that will enable the users to: [i] access and exploit Sentinel data and other relevant contributing missions e.g. ERS, ENVISAT, Landsat and ALOS; [ii] operationally map, assess and inventorize wetlands through a number of dedicated wetland information products and indicators needed for effective wetland management and decision support,  [iii] receive a freely available, open, flexible and modifiable framework for easy establishment of new wetland observatories, for easy integration in existing observatory infrastructures and for easy adaptation to new requirements, e.g. changes in management processes.

The user perspective has become central to projects in the context of Earth Observation based biodiversity monitoring, particularly within the Copernicus framework and within ESA’s Data User Element. The whole idea of service development is based on specific needs at user level and the response to these needs through a technological and operational solution. The user needs usually are based on reporting and monitoring obligations stemming from environmental policies at different scales (from local to global). Within the project Satellite-based Wetland Observation Service (SWOS), funded in the framework of Horizon 2020, the most important objective is to prepare and install a service with users for users. The aim is a tailor-made service to answer to the user and policy needs that is easy to use and demonstrates how existing and new Earth observation information can be used for improved management and the conservation of wetlands as a significant part of a broader natural resources policy.

The paper provides the analysis of the policy context affecting wetland monitoring and the user needs derived from this context. The paper identifies the user organisations at different levels and analyzes the differentiated requirements from one management level to the other, highlighting specific data needs and the way SWOS will provide substantial improvements for wetland monitoring at different scales. Linkages to other ongoing initiatives such as the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) are also established. One of the Foundational Tasks (FT) in the new transitional GEO Work Programme is the “systematic determination of user needs and observational gaps”. This FT will be directly supported by the activities of the SWOS project targeting the thematic area of wetlands and as such especially the GEO societal benefit areas water, biodiversity and ecosystems. In 2011 the Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) has taken on the coordinating role to conceptualise and develop a Global Wetland Observation System (GWOS); a data repository on wetlands which will utilize and store many of the SWOS products. GWOS intends to be a “free of charge” repository open to any potential user. In addition, linkages with the Ramsar Convention, the Biodiversity Convention, the Sustainable Development Goals as well as with the new relevant initiatives of the European Commission namely, the Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystem and Ecosystem Services (MAES) framework and the Green Infrastructure Initiative will be shown.

Overall the SWOS service will support the integration of the wetland knowledge into planning and policies. A selection of the SWOS Service Cases will be presented as demonstrators for improved management and decision making, for national reporting obligations and implementation of international and European initiatives, agreements and directives and for the calculation of satellite-derived indicators to assess wetland related ecosystem functions and services, monitor degradation and fragmentation and inform wetland management decisions.

Throughout the concept development of the aforementioned Service Cases, a structured communication takes place. This structured communication will occur at the interface between end user and service provider and will incorporate varying communication approaches, messages and channels depending on the direct users and decision makers linked to those selected service cases. Important merit is given to the validation and user feedback process envisaged within SWOS as the product and service validation aims to determine the sustainability of service provision, acceptance and adoption by the user communities and networks.

Wetlands are one of the fastest declining ecosystem types worldwide, while at the same time they are hot spots of biodiversity and provide diverse and valuable ecosystem services, such as water supply, hydrological buffering against floods and droughts, and climate regulation through carbon storage. Information on wetlands extent and their boundaries is often scattered and difficult to find and access, which leads to the fact that wetlands are only partially covered worldwide by policies and management practices. To improve this situation, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands has been supporting the conceptualization of a Global Wetland Observation System (GWOS) since 2007. Starting from 2011 the Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) is coordinating this effort.    

The recent launch of the “Satellite-based Wetland Observation Service” (SWOS) Horizon 2020 Project, offers new opportunities and initial funding for development and implementation of the GWOS. Based on the results of the ESA GlobWetland 1 & 2 projects, SWOS is strongly focused on using new Satellite data from Sentinels 1-3 and combining it with other satellite data (MERIS, MODIS, Landsat) as well as ground data and existing data sources from different disciplines (e.g. hydrology, ecology, agriculture/land use, climate). The SWOS project will develop web-based infrastructure for standardized visualization, analysis, download and exchange of wetland observations and information and therefore provide an important baseline for a global system. The JAXA Global Mangrove Watch (GMW) initiative furthermore constitutes a pilot project to the GWOS, where fine resolution baseline and change maps, generated over all global mangrove regions from JERS-1, ALOS and ALOS-2 satellite (L-band SAR) data, are foreseen to be made available to wetland stakeholders though the GWOS. GlobWetland Africa is another important GWOS pioneering project funded by ESA in close collaboration with the Ramsar secretariat, which will develop a comprehensive, open-source and free of charge software toolbox for the production of wetland maps and indicators derived from freely available satellite data sources (e.g. Sentinels 1-3, Landsat 5-8, ALOS PALSAR). Together with other running and upcoming wetland related projects, there is a great opportunity for demonstrating the potential and benefits of a GWOS to stakeholders and decision-makers through products and service-cases. Multi-level (local to global) service-cases are developed within these projects in a stakeholder- and user-driven way and highlight the policy- and decision-making relevance of a GWOS. National wetlands inventories could benefit immensely from the functionalities and information products provided by the mentioned projects and a GWOS, which will also contribute towards future regional and global assessments for the Ramsar State of the World’s Wetlands Reports, as well as the global-level monitoring of the relevant Aichi Biodiversity Targets and Sustainable Development Goals (for both water and biodiversity under Target 6.6 and Target 15.1), and their indicators regarding wetlands extent.

The mentioned projects together with GEO BON, GEO Water, the GEO Secretariat and other key stakeholders constitute a core partnership to coordinate the further progress and implementation of the GWOS by connecting relevant ongoing activities and by developing a roadmap and implementation plan for the next few years. Through the work of this partnership it is planned to use the GEO transitional year of 2016 to formally propose GWOS as a new GEO Wetlands Initiative for the GEO Work Programme 2017-2019.

An expected scientific output of this partnership is the formulation of essential wetland variables, which will draw from and contribute to the ongoing essential variable definition in the areas of water, biodiversity and climate. Indicators that will allow the detailed assessment of trends and changes in wetland ecosystems and their services will be developed within the SWOS project and the broader GWOS community.

Building on the SWOS infrastructure and including the tools and products developed in former and current projects as well as regional and national monitoring and assessment programs will bring the GWOS a big step closer towards implementation. One goal for GWOS is to secure long-term funding for an operational, user-driven global service that exists beyond the runtime of contributing projects. To achieve this, GWOS is expected to play a key role in the coordination and facilitation of global, regional and national wetland EO activities, and to use its convening power to integrate different communities and activities in this global effort. Finally, the implementation of an operational GWOS can be seen as a major contribution to the further development of the GEOSS.

Wetlands are one of the fastest declining ecosystem types worldwide, while at the same time they are hot spots of biodiversity and provide diverse and valuable ecosystem services; such as water supply, hydrological buffering against floods and droughts, and climate regulation through carbon storage. Information on wetland extent, their ecological character and their services is often scattered, underestimated and difficult to find and access, which leads to the fact that wetlands are only partially covered worldwide by policies and management practices.

In this respect, SWOS (a Horizon-2020 project funded by the European Union) provides monitoring tools and information on wetland ecosystems, mainly derived from Earth Observation data.

SWOS is assisting with reporting and monitoring obligations stemming from environmental policies at different scales (from local to global), which contributes to an improved integration of wetlands in policy. SWOS also contributes to the development of a Global Wetland Observation System (GWOS) in close cooperation with the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and other international partners and it complements the MAES process under the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 by supporting the maintenance and restoration of wetland ecosystems and their services. Ultimately, SWOS allows for the informed creation of conservation and restoration measures which maintain biodiversity and essential ecosystem services.

The most important objective of SWOS is to prepare and install an operational service with users for users. Several user organizations are represented by the SWOS Consortium, and further users are identified at the global (e.g. GEO/GEOSS, Ramsar, EU, CBD), regional, national (e.g. EU member states, WFD, national administrations, Natura2000) and local (protected area managers, scientists, local administrations) level in order to support a multi-level user approach.

Because users are involved in the process from start to finish, the service will be widely used and accepted, harmonized with related activities and will have a long term impact on wetland management.

Service cases will demonstrate opportunities for improved wetland management, planning and decision making.

SWOS focuses on the use of freely available satellite data from ESA’s Sentinel satellites and Landsat archives, and builds on results of ESAs Globwetland projects. Near real-time observations via the SWOS service portal allow for dynamic monitoring of wetland status and changes (and the drivers of those changes) on a large spatial and temporal scale. The service will be demonstrated on a selection of wetlands in Europe, but also in Africa and Asia.

The SWOS service portal is a "knowledge hub", allowing users to gain access to a wide range of information for each wetland, including spatial mapping products, scientific papers, links to external webpages, documents, images, etc.. In addition the portal provides the on-demand processing of indicators or information based on the mapping products. Part of the SWOS Portal will be a mobile application including a citizen science tool usable for a wide range of people interested in wetlands and their dynamics. The app will be usable in the field to get access to maps and information or to collect information about wetland delineation or the phenological status of the vegetation.

This paper provides an overview of the SWOS approach as well as gives insights into how the project is engaging users through the establishment of user groups and the development of service cases. The SWOS portal and mapping software will be presented together with first monitoring and mapping results.

(for more information swos-service.eu)

Despite decades of conservation actions, wetlands have continued to disappear at global scale more rapidly than other ecosystems. The Mediterranean region is no exception.

The Mediterranean Wetlands Observatory (MWO), which is coordinated by the Tour du Valat, was created in 2008 within the framework of the MedWet initiative to monitor and evaluate the status and trends of Mediterranean wetlands, and to increase the knowledge of their multiple benefits. Its ultimate goal is to improve wetland conservation and management by disseminating information and indicators broadly, in particular to political decision-makers, stakeholders and the general public, in line with axis 1 of the MedWet strategic vision. The MWO operates thanks to a group of partners who are committed to this vision such as: the Plan Bleu, EKBY, UNEP-WCMC, Wetlands International, the European Space Agency (ESA) and many others.

Among all selected indicators on the Mediterranean wetlands status and trends that the MWO has to provide, those related to geo-referenced data could be derived from EO tools. In this frame, the MWO, in partnership with other organizations like for e.g. the ESA, has developed and tested several approaches to assess some key parameters for wetlands monitoring (e.g. natural and artificial wetland extent, water surface dynamics, LULC dynamics…).

A good example of this EO-based tools development could be the experience that the MWO had with the ESA DUE project GlobWetland-II (GW-II, 2010-2014). After extending the analysis to the Northern shore of the Mediterranean Basin (only 10 countries from the Southern shore initially concerned), the MWO produced the first precise and quantitative report on the Land Use/Land Cover dynamics between 1975 and 2005 in 214 Mediterranean coastal wetlands. The results of this research, based on indicators derived from Landsat images (MSS, TM and ETM), confirmed the importance of land use change, mainly through urban expansion, agricultural practices and wetlands artificialization (wetland habitats change from natural to artificial), as an impacting driver on the studied sites by the loss of 10% of their natural wetland habitats in 30 years (1975-2005).

In addition to GW-II, many other EO-based projects were conducted by the MWO with the aim to develop spatial indicators related to wetlands monitoring. The RhoMéO Program (2009-2012, at the scale of the Rhône watershed in France) was one of them. During this project, in collaboration with the University of Malaga, other satellite images derived indicators were developed mainly related to wetland surface extent, land use change and seasonal water surface dynamics.

In the next years, in line with its general objectives and goals and drawing from the lessons of past projects, the MWO will keep on working with EO data for wetland conservation and protection. The MWO is already involved in a Horizon-2020 project (Satellite-based Wetland Observation Service / SWOS, 2015-2018) which has the ambition to develop a monitoring and information service for wetland ecosystems. This should complement the MAES (Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystem Services) Working Group under the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 process and support the consideration of wetlands in the implementation of key policy areas.