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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2022

Using remote sensing to assess the role of coastal ecosystems in the protection against erosion in the Caribbean

Nathan Poillerat
  • Fonction : Auteur
Claire Dupaquier
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

Most of the world's coastal environments are experiencing the negative effects of climate change combined with anthropogenic activities. In order to limit those effects, policy makers and managers need to understand the process that is taking place on the coast. Where the safety of goods and persons, but also the tourism economy linked to the preservation of beaches and the natural heritage of these interface environments, rich in biodiversity (mangroves, coral reefs, seagrass beds) are the primary concerns. CARIB-COAST is an international project led by the BRGM (https://www.carib-coast.com/en/). Its ambition is to pool, co-construct and disseminate approaches to monitoring, coastal risk prevention and adaptation to climate change in the Caribbean. An analysis of existing monitoring practices allowed to better constrain the needs for coastal monitoring in the Caribbean territories and propose a strategy based on the experiences carried out in the different participating countries. In this respect, pilot sites have been identified in Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Martin, Jamaïca, Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago to strengthen or initiate coastal monitoring approaches and assess the role of coastal ecosystems like mangroves, seagrass and coral reefs in the protection against coastal erosion. Many studies focus on Coastal vulnerability Index (CVI), one of the predictive approaches to coastal classification by incorporating various coastal variables. This index-based method simplifies a number of complex and interacting parameters, and is widely used to measure vulnerability of the coastlines. Given the extent of the area of interest, the diversity of pilot sites and variables to be integrated in the CVI calculation, and the intent to develop a common approach for all areas, this study has taken advantage of current available remote sensing data to construct a vulnerability index.In this study, the proposed Ecosystem-based Coastal Vulnerability Index (EBCVI) involves a wide range of variables, mainly focused on ecosystem characteristics, represented by diverse data types, and their contribution to coastal protection against erosion. In particular, we used remotely-sensed data to contribute to (i) current mangrove restoration actions, (ii) the evaluation of coral reefs evolution and their role on erosion and (iii) the promotion of seagrass protection. The calculation of the EBCVI relies on: ● the production of mangroves distribution maps, using high resolution Sentinel 2 data in a supervised classification approach. ● the use of seagrass and coral reefs distribution and types maps provided by the Allen Coral Atlas ● the calculation of surface metrics (texture, density, fragmentation…), from very high resolution Pleiades and Planetscope images, describing ecosystems at a fine scale. ● the application of a multi-criteria analysis to these metrics combined with other variables (geomorphology, socio-economics...) in order to map coastal vulnerability by assessing EBCVI values for each pilot site. The knowledge of local partners will allow a weighting of the importance of each criteria in the index. This index has the potential to be used as a management tool in order to assess impacts of climate change on Caribbean coasts through the development of existing observatories and good practices around a common protocol, and triggering (iv) new initiatives in the Caribbean region, enabling an appropriate implementation of short and long term policies dedicated to coastline protection.
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Dates et versions

hal-04399021 , version 1 (17-01-2024)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04399021 , version 1

Citer

Nathan Poillerat, Thibault Catry, Claire Dupaquier. Using remote sensing to assess the role of coastal ecosystems in the protection against erosion in the Caribbean. ESA Living Planet Symposium, May 2022, Bonn, Germany. ⟨hal-04399021⟩
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