The University of Guyana’s Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences (FEES) in collaboration with Servir Amazonia, NASA, Spatial Information Group (SIG), and CIAT hosted a workshop on the monitoring of mangroves from January 20 – January 24, 2020 at the Turkeyen Campus. The workshop focused on ‘Using the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to monitor mangrove Forests in Guyana’.
Dr Temitope Oyedotun, Dean of the Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences, stated that the ultimate objective of the initiative is for Government and civil society (decision-makers) to have access to up-to-date maps of mangrove extent and health. Such information can be useful for land-use planning and climate change mitigation efforts. The workshop promises to be an enriching experience for participants.
Professor Paloma Mohamed-Martin, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, noted the importance of such an endeavor. “This initiative is not just important for the University of Guyana, but for you the participants to acquire knowledge about the technology. On the grand scheme of things this technology will have a macro effect on Guyana,” she said.
The workshop brought remote-sensing resources, primarily Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), to bear on mapping the extent and structure of mangrove forests along the coast of Guyana. Professionals in Guyana together with SERVIR-Amazonia staff will build a platform for automating the analysis of radar and optical imagery going back several years and setting 2020 as the baseline for future analysis. The service will make mangrove related land use change transparent and the resulting analysis publicly available for use by government and civil society.
Some of the participants were drawn from the University of Guyana (UG), Hydromet, National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI), Conservation International Guyana, Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) and Ministry of Natural Resources among other institutions.
The main facilitator was Dr. Mark Simard from NASA while technical support was provided by two scientists, Dr. Glenn Hyman and Ms. Andrea Nicolau, both from Spatial Informatics Group (SIG).
