03/10/2024
3003 views
41 likes
Due to an ESA-funded endeavor and knowledge from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, researchers have revealed seasonal variations in intertidal seagrass all through Western Europe and North Africa. As a key indicator of biodiversity, these new findings provide worthwhile insights for the conservation and restoration of these necessary ecosystems.
The intertidal zone is the world the place the ocean meets the land between extreme and low tides, and proper right here seagrasses can kind in depth meadows. These flowering marine vegetation current important habitats, showing as shelter, nurseries, and feeding and spawning grounds for a numerous fluctuate of birds, fish and invertebrates. Previous their ecological significance, seagrass meadows moreover stabilise sediments and defend coastlines from erosion.
Monitoring the prevalence, extent, state of affairs and number of intertidal seagrass as a key biodiversity variable is necessary for assessing the final nicely being of native ecosystems.
Current worldwide estimates of seagrass safety do not differentiate between seagrasses throughout the intertidal zone and other people throughout the subtidal zone, which keep submerged beneath the ocean ground.
However, a present paperprinted in Communications Earth & Settingparticulars how a employees of scientists used high-resolution imagery from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission to point out its means to map intertidal seagrass meadows and their seasonal changes all through continents with consistency and precision.
Their evaluation was funded by one amongst ESA’s Science for Society duties known as Biodiversity of the Coastal Oceanor BICOME.
Bede Ffinian Rowe Davies from Nantes Faculty in France and lead author of the paper, talked about, “Coastal areas, like quite a lot of the world, are experiencing quick and alarming biodiversity loss. To deal with this, it’s important to develop atmosphere pleasant monitoring methods so that nicely timed and acceptable movement may very well be taken to guard delicate ecosystems.
“Using data from Sentinel-2 all through the BiCOME endeavor, we had been ready to disclose important seasonal variations in intertidal seagrass. The peaks in extent shifted by as lots as 5 months – troublesome earlier assumptions that there was little or no seasonal fluctuation.”
As examples, the satellite tv for pc television for laptop pictures displayed above current the changes in intertidal seagrass cowl throughout the Cádiz Lagoon, Spain. One was taken in Might 2018 and the other in November 2021.
The satellite tv for pc television for laptop pictures beneath illustrate changes in intertidal seagrass cowl throughout the Bay of Bourgneuf, positioned north of the Bay of Biscay, off the western coast of France. The image on the left, from April 2021, displays sparse intertidal seagrass, whereas the image on the acceptable, from September 2021, reveals ample improvement.
Victor Martinez-Vicente, BiCOME endeavor principal investigator, well-known, “This analysis demonstrates the potential of satellite tv for pc television for laptop observations to hint changes throughout the extent of pure coastal ecosystems, providing worthwhile insights for indicators throughout the Worldwide Biodiversity Framework. Further evaluation is required to develop long-term satellite-based monitoring methods and datasets to assist worldwide progress in the direction of attaining the framework aims.”
ESA’s Marie-Helene Rio, added, “These new findings clearly present the value that Sentinel-2 can carry to monitoring intertidal seagrass. We now think about that these intertidal meadows behave in any other case to the form of seagrass that spends most of its life submerged by seawater. Which means earlier estimates, which grouped the two varieties collectively, could very nicely be misleading.”
“The evaluation paves one of the best ways to extra monitoring and analysis of intertidal seagrass meadows using Sentinel-2 data.”
The Sentinel-2 satellites each carry a multispectral imager that takes high-resolution pictures of Earth’s land, islands, and inland and coastal waters. And with an enormous swath width of 290 km, it offers these pictures in 13 spectral bands with resolutions of 10 m, 20 m and 60 m.
The third Sentinel-2 satellite tv for pc television for laptop, Sentinel-2C, was launched on 5 September 2024, and has already delivered its first pictures of Earth.
