SCIENCE@home

An open source, remote sensing‐based methodology for wetland habitat condition assessments to aid conservation decision‐making

Leanne F. Tough,Andrew J. Bamford,A. Harrison,K. A. Wood,Sietse O. Los,Olly van Biervliet,S. Turvey,Michael A. Hudson,J. Hansford,Clare Duncan

Published 2025 in Journal of Applied Ecology

ABSTRACT

Wetlands provide critical underpinning to global biodiversity and human well‐being, yet they are some of the most heavily degraded habitats on the planet. Remote sensing is increasingly being used in monitoring global ecosystems and biological resources, and for conservation decision‐making, including for wetlands. Satellite remote sensing of wetland condition at a national, regional, or even global scale opens up the opportunity for conservation‐priority analysis that would be prohibitively expensive and practically not feasible to determine with field studies alone. This study proposes an open‐source, low‐cost methodology for combining a time series trend analysis of relevant selected habitat condition indices and a ranking approach to evaluate habitat condition and suitability for a conservation decision‐making need. The developed methodology is applied to analyse the degradation of Madagascar's wetlands in relation to the Critically Endangered Madagascar pochard (Aythya innotata) reintroduction plans, targeted to save the species from extinction. Consistent with previous research, the remotely sensed indices of wetland condition quantified Madagascar's high degree of wetland degradation over time (1984–2020), and the ranking of wetlands by habitat condition is consistent with rankings determined in rapid ground‐based assessments in the country. This demonstrates the strength of the methodology in making accurate, remote sensing image‐based conclusions. Synthesis and applications: Relative long‐term habitat condition was quantified to help direct conservation decision‐making. This time‐ and cost‐saving method is transferrable to other habitats with their own set of condition assessment indices to aid multiple conservation objective planning.

PUBLICATION RECORD

CITATION MAP

EXTRACTION MAP

CLAIMS

  • No claims are published for this paper.

CONCEPTS

  • No concepts are published for this paper.

REFERENCES

Showing 1-56 of 56 references · Page 1 of 1

CITED BY

  • No citing papers are available for this paper.

Showing 0-0 of 0 citing papers · Page 1 of 1