Coastal Habitat Mapping of the Falkland Islands - South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute
Original (non-English) name
Acronym
Coastal Habitat Mapping of the Falkland Islands - SAERI
Citation
Abstract
Historically, and to this day, the coastal and inshore marine ecosystems and resources have played an important role in the Falkland Islands. Knowledge of these coastal environments is essential for their management, yet comprehensive island-wide broad scale and fine scale coastal habitat maps are lacking. Such maps could form an important baseline from which to measure future change.
The DPLUS065 Coastal Habitat Mapping project aimed to fill this critical gap in coastal knowledge. The three-year project, concluding in March 2020, was grant aided by the Darwin Initiative through UK Government funding. The project utilised medium resolution satellite imagery, other geospatial data and local expert knowledge to develop broad scale coastal margin (terrestrial, intertidal and subtidal) habitat maps for the Falkland Islands. Where there was significant uncertainty in these broad scale maps, or in response to specific priorities from stakeholders, higher resolution habitat maps utilising very high-resolution satellite imagery or bespoke imagery captured using aerial drones were developed. The resultant habitat maps create an essential baseline, providing a basis for use in future planning, decision-making and monitoring.
The project brought together experts from SAERI, Oregon State University, the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Shallow Marine Surveys Group, Falkland Islands Government and Government of South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands, representing the leading edge in remote sensing, ecological knowledge and field expertise.
This webGIS presents some of the spatial outputs from the project, including:
1. a digital map of 1956 aerial imagery
2. a broad scale habitat map for the Falkland Islands
3. fine scale coastal habitat maps in locations of interest to stakeholders
4. aerial imagery captured by drone.