E&E Seminar: “A landscape perspective on wetland conservation, restoration, and monitoring” by Sophie Taddeo (Chicago Botanic Garden)
November 30, 2021
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Join us on Nov. 30th, 2021 for "A landscape perspective on wetland conservation, restoration, and monitoring" by Sophie Taddeo (Chicago Botanic Garden)
Host: Gabriela Nunez-Mir
Abstract: Wetlands are among the most stressed ecosystems on earth, yet they receive considerably less attention than their terrestrial counterparts. Meanwhile, the ecosystem services they provide will become increasingly important with climate change exacerbating our need for flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, and water filtration. To safeguard the diversity, resilience, and functions of wetland plant communities, it is paramount to develop low cost, robust, and scalable methods for their consistent monitoring. To support the widespread monitoring and conservation of wetland ecosystems, I conducted with colleagues several projects testing the sensitivity of open-source satellite images to the diversity, composition, and dynamics of wetland plant communities across the conterminous United States. Results show that publicly available remote sensing datasets are sensitive to plant diversity and dominance across a variety of wetland types. Time series of remote sensing data can also detect changes in the composition of wetland plant communities, which suggest that they could be used as an early indicator of ecosystem shifts. These results highlight the potential of remote sensing analyses to complement field efforts to enhance our understanding of factors impacting wetland diversity and resilience, inform field monitoring, and prioritize conservation efforts.
Date posted
Aug 20, 2021
Date updated
Nov 9, 2021