WetClim - Remote sensing indicators of ecosystem services and ecosystem health in seasonal wetlands under climate change
Seasonal wetlands are highly dynamic ecosystems for which satellite images time series are the only way to study their spatial dynamics and temporal trends. They are fragile ecosystems that will be dramatically affected by climate change and for which there is very little scientific knowledge on how they change and how they will respond. Wetlands provide ecosystem services such as flood control, water purification, recreation and tourism, provide cultural an aesthetic values, and are reservoirs of biodiversity. In order to design adaptation strategies it is necessary to design efficient ways to monitor the health of these ecosystems under climate change, and build models on how they could respond to future climate change predictions. The present proposal coordinates the work of three research teams from Spain, Argentina and Brazil, with experience in remote sensing of wetlands. The objective is to reconstruct the flooding dynamics from 2000 to 2014 of three wetlands of international importance and Ramsar sites (Doñana, Parana's river Delta and the Pantanal) using the Short-wave infra-red (SWIR) bands of MODIS. Mean hydroperiod duration and variability will be related to vegetation communities, functional and structural characteristics present at point locations in wetlands and recorded at ground-truth visits. The three research groups will coordinate their approaches to the problem and participate at simultaneous field campaigns at the three sites. The project will facilitate the generalization of local models of wetland functional characteristics studied with remote sensing, and facilitate coordination between the research groups that are also applying for a larger COST Action.
Send CV and letter of interest before 1st December to jbustamante(at)ebd.csic.es
