Integrative approaches to support coastal marine managementchanges in sediment discharge and participatory habitat mapping

Resumo

Coastal marine ecosystems include a diverse and productive set of habitats. These habitats provide essential and numerous ecosystem services contributing to the human well-being and sustainable economic and social development. However, global biodiversity in coastal marine habitats is experiencing detrimental effects. These negative impacts are caused by the rampant increase of cumulative human pressures, such as habitat modification, changes in land cover, marine pollution, overexploitation of natural resources, urban coastal development and climate change. The aim of the present thesis is to provide critical tools and information to support the management of coastal marine habitats, with particular emphasis on the data integration to overcome liming factors such as environmental limiting factors and cost. Chapter I evaluated the likely change on basin's sediment delivery driven by the land cover changes on the coastal marine habitats of an MPA and surrounding waters. Chapter II shows an innovative approach to develop a coastal and marine habitat map where multiple sources of information were integrated (remote sensing, extensive fieldwork, local experts knowledge and existing scientific information and reports) to overcome multiple limiting factors, i.e. water turbidity and complex seascapes. We delineated 17 habitats, including critical habitats for marine biodiversity such as coral reefs and mangroves, and previously unreported oyster beds and deep seagrasses with high economic and cultural value. Chapter III produced a comprehensive integrative framework for coastal marine mapping. This framework aims to provide accurate and cost-effective coastal marine habitat maps across broad spatial scales (100-1000s km2) for regions with environmental conditions, such as turbidity and/or very dynamic environments, that challenge conventional approaches. The framework recognizes the value of local knowledge as an important source of spatial information and as an added value for subsequent decision making using this mapping. Therefore, local knowledge is integrated into all steps of the framework from planning to validation of the map. This framework provides a transparent and systematic way of reproducing habitat mapping, with an easy-to-implement method, as the approach is simple, effective and cost-effective.