Advances in Remote Sensing for Natural Resource Monitoring

Prem C. Pandey, Laxmi K. Sharma, Prem C. Pandey, Laxmi K. Sharma

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781119615972
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119616030
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Civil Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Sustainable management of natural resources is an urgent need, given the changing climatic conditions of Earth systems. The ability to monitor natural resources precisely and accurately is increasingly important. New and advanced remote sensing tools and techniques are continually being developed to monitor and manage natural resources in an effective way. Remote sensing technology uses electromagnetic sensors to record, measure and monitor even small variations in natural resources. The addition of new remote sensing datasets, processing techniques and software makes remote sensing an exact and cost-effective tool and technology for natural resource monitoring and management.

Advances in Remote Sensing for Natural Resources Monitoring provides a detailed overview of the potential applications of advanced satellite data in natural resource monitoring. The book determines how environmental and - ecological knowledge and satellite-based information can be effectively combined to address a wide array of current natural resource management needs. Each chapter covers different aspects of remote sensing approach to monitor the natural resources effectively, to provide a platform for decision and policy. This important work:

• Provides comprehensive coverage of advances and applications of remote sensing in natural resources monitoring
• Includes new and emerging approaches for resource monitoring with case studies
• Covers different aspects of forest, water, soil- land resources, and agriculture
• Provides exemplary illustration of themes such as glaciers, surface runoff, ground water potential and soil moisture content with temporal analysis
• Covers blue carbon, seawater intrusion, playa wetlands, and wetland inundation with case studies
• Showcases disaster studies such as floods, tsunami, showing where remote sensing technologies have been used

This edited book is the first volume of the book series Advances in Remote Sensing for Earth Observation.

Section IV
Water Resource Monitoring

13
Managing the Blue Carbon Ecosystem: A Remote Sensing and GIS Approach

Parul Maurya¹, Anup Kumar Das², and Rina Kumari¹

¹School of Environment and Sustainable Development, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

²Space Application Centre, Indian Space Research Organization, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

13.1 Introduction

Over the last few decades, change in Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) has led to deforestation, forest degradation, and biomass burning, which accounts for almost 25% (up to 12 Pg CO₂ e yr⁻¹) of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. From the pre‐industrial era (1750), atmospheric CO₂ (278 ppm) has now reached to 413.52 ppm (2019), and is expected to reach up to 467–555 ppm in the year 2050; the anticipated average rise in global temperature is by 2–4 °C (IPCC 2013; Rahman et al. 2015). Globally, there are two major carbon sinks – terrestrial and ocean, which alter annually in average carbon accumulation. It has been reported that from 1990 to 2000, the average land sink is 2.6 ± 0.7 petagrams of C per year (Pg C yr⁻¹) and ocean sinks are 2.2 ± 0.4 petagrams of C per year (Pg C yr⁻¹). But in 2008, it has been observed that the global mean accumulation rate for land was 4.7 ± 1.2 Pg C yr⁻¹ and for oceans was 2.3 ± 0.4 Pg C yr⁻¹ (Zhu et al. 2010). The persistence and durability of reservoirs are important to determine their role in the global carbon cycle with regards to the stability or rates of exchange of their carbon stocks with the atmosphere (Ajani et al. 2013). Also, to achieve low‐carbon sustainable growth, understanding the structure and function of ecosystem processes, forest biomass and productivity, and their responses to climate change is necessary. Monitoring and mapping the land use change in tropical regions is still a challenging scientific problem.

Among the various terrestrial carbon sinks, tropical forests and coastal ecosystems are the most important and play a significant role in the global carbon cycle. The global area and carbon burial rate of different ecosystems are given in Table 13.1.

13.2 Blue Carbon Ecosystem

“Blue carbon” refers to the carbon which is produced and sequestrated by coastal ecosystems such as mangrove, salt marshes, and seagrasses (Mcleod et al. 2011; Pendleton et al. 2012). These ecosystems sequester the atmospheric carbon for short‐term duration (decennial) within their aboveground biomass (detritus wood, propagules, twigs, and litter) and belowground biomass (roots), as well as in non‐living biomass (litter, propagules, twigs, and detritus wood) and in sediments for longer time scales (millennial) (Duarte et al. 2005a; Lo Iacono et al. 2008). The total cover of blue carbon ecosystems is approximately 49 million ha of the Earth's total surface, which represents less than 5% of the earth surface (Twilley et al. 1992; Pendleton et al. 2012).

Table 13.1 Global area and carbon burial rate in different coastal and terrestrial ecosystems.

Ecosystems	Global area (km^2)	Carbon Burial (g cm^−2 yr^−1)
Mangroves	137 760–15 236a)^,b)	226 (range = 20–949)c)^,d)^,e)
Salt marshes	22 000–4 00 000^a)^,f)^,g)	218 (range = 18–1 713)^a)^,^d)^,h)
Seagrasses	177 000–6 00 000^a)	138 (range = 45–190) ^a)^,^d)^,^h)
Temperate forest	10 400 000^d)	5.1 (range = 0.7–13.1)^d)^,i)
Tropical forest	19 622 846^d)	4 (range = 1.4–7.6)^d)^,^i)
Boreal forest	13 700 000^d)	4.6 (range = 0.8–11.7)^d)^,^i)

^a) Mcleod et al. 2011.

^b) Spalding et al. 2010.

^c) Duarte et al. 2010.

^d) Schlesinger 1997.

^e) Lovelock et al. 2010.

^f) McOwen et al. 2017.

^g) Alongi 2018c.

^h) Duarte et al. 2005a.

ⁱ⁾ Zehetner 2010.

13.2.1 Distribution

Among the blue carbon ecosystem, the area represented by mangroves is ∼140 000 km², seagrass meadows ∼320 000 km², and salt marshes ∼51 000 km² worldwide (Figure 13.1). Mangroves (∼95%) and seagrasses (∼70%) are confined to the tropical and subtropical zone, whereas salt marshes are p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• List of Abbreviations
• List of Contributors
• List of Editors
• Preface
• Section I: General Section
• Section II: Vegetation Resource Monitoring (Forest and Agriculture)
• Section III: Soil and Land Resource Monitoring
• Section IV: Water Resource Monitoring
• Section V: Disaster Monitoring of Natural Resources
• Section VI: Future Aspect of Natural Resource Monitoring
• Index
• End User License Agreement