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Published with ISME, ITTO and project partners FAO, UNESCO-MAB, UNEP-WCMC and UNU-INWEH This atlas provides the first truly global assessment of the state of the world's mangroves. Written by a leading expert on mangroves with support from the top international researchers and conservation organizations, this full colour atlas contains 60 full-page maps, hundreds of photographs and illustrations and a comprehensive country-by-country assessment of mangroves. Mangroves are considered both ecologically and from a human perspective. Initial chapters provide a global view, with information on distribution, biogeography, productivity and wider ecology, as well as on human uses, economic values, threats, and approaches for mangrove management. These themes are revisited throughout the regional chapters, where the maps provide a spatial context or starting point for further exploration. The book also presents a wealth of statistics on biodiversity, habitat area, loss and economic value which provide a unique record of mangroves against which future threats and changes can be evaluated. Case-studies, written by regional experts provide insights into regional mangrove issues, including primary and potential productivity, biodiversity, and information on present and traditional uses and values and sustainable management.

This book contains a wealth of research combined with almost fifty years of field experience to present this comprehensive review of resident and migratory avian species in the coastal mangrove forests of the Indian-Bangladesh Sundarbans and hinterland. The book gives a general account of the diversity and distribution of resident and migratory avian species with special emphasis on their ecology in a changing climate. It provides a detailed reference source, covering mangroves' spatial heterogeneity and bird diversity; impact of mangroves and non-mangrove vegetation on the birds including provision for food, shelter and reproduction; role of birds in the food web; relationships among bird communities; and impacts on the habitats of the birds. The study of the 580 species in the region shows those better able to adapt to changing environments, and those more sensitive to climate change. Species that are relatively short-lived but reproduce very easily, are able to adapt and respond quickly to changes. Threatened species may be able to recover if governments, wildlife officials, non-government conservationists and other stakeholders can act quickly to support them.

This study presents a new global baseline of mangrove extent for 2010 and has been released as the first output of the Global Mangrove Watch (GMW) initiative. This is the first study to apply a globally consistent and automated method for mapping mangroves, identifying a global extent of 137,600 km 2 . The overall accuracy for mangrove extent was 94.0% with a 99% likelihood that the true value is between 93.6–94.5%, using 53,878 accuracy points across 20 sites distributed globally. Using the geographic regions of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, Asia has the highest proportion of mangroves with 38.7% of the global total, while Latin America and the Caribbean have 20.3%, Africa has 20.0%, Oceania has 11.9%, North America has 8.4% and the European Overseas Territories have 0.7%. The methodology developed is primarily based on the classification of ALOS PALSAR and Landsat sensor data, where a habitat mask was first generated, within which the classification of mangrove was undertaken using the Extremely Randomized Trees classifier. This new globally consistent baseline will also form the basis of a mangrove monitoring system using JAXA JERS-1 SAR, ALOS PALSAR and ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 radar data to assess mangrove change from 1996 to the present. However, when using the product, users should note that a minimum mapping unit of 1 ha is recommended and that the error increases in regions of disturbance and where narrow strips or smaller fragmented areas of mangroves are present. Artefacts due to cloud cover and the Landsat-7 SLC-off error are also present in some areas, particularly regions of West Africa due to the lack of Landsat-5 data and persistence cloud cover. In the future, consideration will be given to the production of a new global baseline based on 10 m Sentinel-2 composites.

Mangrove forests in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are facing multiple threats from natural and anthropogenic-driven land use change stressors, contributing to altered ecosystem conditions. Remote sensing tools can be used to monitor mangroves, measure mangrove forest-and-tree-level attributes and vegetation indices at different spatial and temporal scales that allow a detailed and comprehensive understanding of these important ecosystems. Using a systematic literature approach, we reviewed 58 remote sensing-based mangrove assessment articles published from 2010 through 2022. The main objectives of the study were to examine the extent of mangrove distribution and cover, and the remotely sensed data sources used to assess mangrove forest/tree attributes. The key importance of and threats to mangroves that were specific to the region were also examined. Mangrove distribution and cover were mainly estimated from satellite images (75.2%), using NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) derived from Landsat (73.3%), IKONOS (15%), Sentinel (11.7%), WorldView (10%), QuickBird (8.3%), SPOT-5 (6.7%), MODIS (5%) and others (5%) such as PlanetScope. Remotely sensed data from aerial photographs/images (6.7%), LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) (5%) and UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)/Drones (3.3%) were the least used. Mangrove cover decreased in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait between 1996 and 2020. However, mangrove cover increased appreciably in Qatar and remained relatively stable for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over the same period, which was attributed to government conservation initiatives toward expanding mangrove afforestation and restoration through direct seeding and seedling planting. The reported country-level mangrove distribution and cover change results varied between studies due to the lack of a standardized methodology, differences in satellite imagery resolution and classification approaches used. There is a need for UAV-LiDAR ground truthing to validate country-and-local-level satellite data. Urban development-driven coastal land reclamation and pollution, climate change-driven temperature and sea level rise, drought and hypersalinity from extreme evaporation are serious threats to mangrove ecosystems. Thus, we encourage the prioritization of mangrove conservation and restoration schemes to support the achievement of related UN Sustainable Development Goals (13 climate action, 14 life below water, and 15 life on land) in the GCC countries.

This study presents an updated global mangrove forest baseline for 2010: Global Mangrove Watch (GMW) v2.5. The previous GMW maps (v2.0) of the mangrove extent are currently considered the most comprehensive available global products, however areas were identified as missing or poorly mapped. Therefore, this study has updated the 2010 baseline map to increase the mapping quality and completeness of the mangrove extent. This revision resulted in an additional 2660 km2 of mangroves being mapped yielding a revised global mangrove extent for 2010 of some 140,260 km2. The overall map accuracy was estimated to be 95.1% with a 95th confidence interval of 93.8–96.5%, as assessed using 50,750 reference points located across 60 globally distributed sites. Of these 60 validation sites, 26 were located in areas that were remapped to produce the v2.5 map and the overall accuracy for these was found to have increased from 82.6% (95th confidence interval: 80.1–84.9) for the v2.0 map to 95.0% (95th confidence interval: 93.7–96.4) for the v2.5 map. Overall, the improved GMW v2.5 map provides a more robust product to support the conservation and sustainable use of mangroves globally.

Mangroves are important sinks of organic carbon (C) and there is significant interest in their use for greenhouse gas emissions mitigation. Adverse impacts on organic carbon storage potential from future climate change and deforestation would devalue such ambitions, thus global projections of future change remains a priority research area. We modeled the effects of climate change on future C stocks and soil sequestration rates (CSR) under two climate scenarios (“business as usual”: SSP245 and high-emissions: SSP585). Model results were contrasted with CO2 equivalents (CO2e) emissions from past, present and future rates of deforestation on a country specific scale. For C stocks, we found climate change will increase global stocks by ∼7% under both climate scenarios and that this gain will exceed losses from deforestation by the end of the twenty-first century, largely due to shifts in rainfall. Major mangrove-holding countries Indonesia, Malaysia, Cuba, and Nigeria will increase national C stocks by > 10%. Under the high-end scenario, while a net global increase is still expected, elevated temperatures and wider temperature ranges are likely increase the risk of countries’ C stocks diminishing. For CSR, there will likely be a global reduction under both climate change scenarios: 12 of the top 20 mangrove-rich countries will see a drop in CSR. Modeling of published country level mangrove deforestation rates showed emissions have decreased from 141.4 to 6.4% of annual CSR since the 1980’s. Projecting current mangrove deforestation rates into the future resulted in a total of 678.50 ± 151.32 Tg CO2e emitted from 2012 to 2095. Reducing mangrove deforestation rates further would elevate the carbon benefit from climate change by 55–61%, to make the proposition of offsetting emissions through mangrove protection and restoration more attractive. These results demonstrate the positive benefits of mangrove conservation on national carbon budgets, and we identify the nations where incorporating mangrove conservation into their Nationally Defined Contributions offers a particularly rewarding route toward meeting their Glasgow Agreement commitments.

Mangroves stand out as one of the most diverse and biologically significant natural systems in the world. Playing critical roles in maintaining the health and productivity of coastal ecosystems, mangroves provide a range of services and functions, including habitat for local fauna and flora, food and other goods, carbon sequestration, and protection from natural disasters such as storm surges and coastal erosion. It is also evident that mangroves face several threats, which have already led to the gradual depletion of mangrove areas worldwide. Based on the analysis of current and related historical literature and data, this review summarises mangrove functions and the threats and challenges associated with mangrove management practices. Our findings suggest that coastal development, expanded aquaculture, deforestation, climate change, and other associated implications such as eutrophication, diseases, and pollution are the major factors posing threats to mangrove sustainability. We also highlight the various challenges, such as land use conflict, a lack of stringent regulatory actions, inadequate policy and government frameworks, and a lack of community awareness, that underlie ineffective mangrove management. The implementation of inclusive and coordinated approaches involving stakeholders from different backgrounds and interests, governmental and non-governmental organisations, and academia is essential for mangrove restoration and sustainable mangrove management by adapting mitigation strategies.

Background Coastal areas in Guinea-Bissau and elsewhere in West Africa are bordered by mangrove forests. In several of these places, swaths of mangrove forest have been removed and the landscape has been technologically adapted for the production of mangrove rice–a regionally important staple. However, the effects of global warming, in particular sea-level rise, pose challenges to these socioecological environments. In this context, knowledge appears as an important resource and knowing what knowledge has been produced and which perspectives have guided that production may inform future responses to climate change. We have developed a systematic literature review protocol focusing on the main question: “How have mangrove forest and mangrove rice spaces been represented in the literature on Guinea-Bissau?” The main hypothesis is that although they occupy contiguous, interrelated and interactant spaces in coastal environments, mangrove forests and mangrove rice have been studied and analyzed independently in the literature. Methods This is a protocol for conducting a systematic review that will include academic and non-academic literature in Portuguese, English and French. The academic literature will be retrieved from both Web of Science and Scopus using Boolean expressions. The non-academic literature will be accessed from relevant institutions, specialized libraries, and reference lists of previously selected items. Data extraction will follow a standard procedure based on an information sheet. Our analysis will be both qualitative (inductive and deductive coding, content analysis) and quantitative (word clouds, descriptive statistics and statistical testing). Discussion This systematic review will provide information about the conceptual framework that has been produced through research, policymaking, and conservation and development programs in the management of coastal areas. This study will identify the limitations of previous approaches and contribute to both future research and strategies for planning adaptation to climate change. Finally, the outputs will add to broader debates about people-nature coexistence and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Mangrove ecosystems provide critical goods and ecosystem services to coastal communities and contribute to climate change mitigation. Over four decades, remote sensing has proved its usefulness in monitoring mangrove ecosystems on a broad scale, over time, and at a lower cost than field observation. The increasing use of spectral indices has led to an expansion of the geographical context of mangrove studies from local-scale studies to intercontinental and global analyses over the past 20 years. In remote sensing, numerous spectral indices derived from multiple spectral bands of remotely sensed data have been developed and used for multiple studies on mangroves. In this paper, we review the range of spectral indices produced and utilised in mangrove remote sensing between 1996 and 2021. Our findings reveal that spectral indices have been used for a variety of mangrove aspects but excluded identification of mangrove species. The included aspects are mangrove extent, distribution, mangrove above ground parameters (e.g., carbon density, biomass, canopy height, and estimations of LAI), and changes to the aforementioned aspects over time. Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was found to be the most widely applied index in mangroves, used in 82% of the studies reviewed, followed by the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) used in 28% of the studies. Development and application of potential indices for mangrove cover characterisation has increased (currently 6 indices are published), but NDVI remains the most popular index for mangrove remote sensing. Ultimately, we identify the limitations and gaps of current studies and suggest some future directions under the topic of spectral index application in connection to time series imagery and the fusion of optical sensors for mangrove studies in the digital era.