MOnitoring Mangrove ExteNT & Services (MOMENTS): What is controlling Tipping Points?

Within the tropics mangrove forests are seen as one of the most sustainable solutions to coastal climate adaptation and mitigation as a coastal wave buffer and carbon storage yet they are also threatened by accelerated sea level rise, sediment starvation and increased storm frequency and intensity. Particularly in vulnerable regions of Southeast-Asia changes in mangrove extend have implications with societal and economic relevance. There is an incomplete understanding of the factors causing tipping points resulting in mangroves switching to a fast rate of retreat or outgrowth at the border between mangroves and tidal flats. While quantification of the true economic value of the ecosystem system services (e.g., coastal protection, fisheries, carbon storage, biodiversity and wood products) provided by mangroves and their link to mangrove extent is also limited and is important for understanding the full business case for mangroves in the wider system. This project aims to understand the factors controlling such non-linear mangrove dynamics and to quantify the rate of lateral mangrove dynamics and associated change in ecosystem services in Vietnam and Indonesia. This project will further develop a satellite based remote sensing monitoring system in combination with field and mesocosm experiments, modelling to elucidate tipping points in lateral mangrove dynamics and quantifying the economic value of mangroves restoration and loss. These will provide national monitoring allowing changes to be understood and anticipated, key areas for restoration identified and the economic value and its temporal dynamics to be assessed. Furthermore, national and local governments, NGOs and coastal communities will benefit through the provision of evidence and methods for quantifying the value of mangroves and mangrove restoration.

The main beneficiaries from this research will be:

* Academic communities (mangrove ecology, coastal engineering, ecosystem services modelling, remote sensing and image processing)
* Local and national governments with mangrove regions but specifically Vietnam and Indonesia
* NGO's involved in mangrove restoration and management projects.
* International NGOs including United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (UN FAO), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Group on Earth Observations (GEO), International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), United Nations Environment Programme's World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP WCMC)

They will benefit from this research through the following outputs:

1. Mangrove tipping points model, providing new understand on the drivers of lateral changes in mangrove extent.
2. Economic model for ecosystem services of mangroves
3. A near real-time satellite monitoring system for mangrove extent.
4. Monthly mapping products for mangrove extent from January 2015 to November 2019, which will be made freely available to the community at the end of the project.
5. The open source free software RSGISLib will be extended in creating the monitoring system and made available with documentation to the community.

These outputs will be publicised through:

1. Publications and Conferences
2. Project website and social media feeds
3. Annual newsletters
4. Policy Briefings
5. Shared study sites and collaboration with local NGOs
6. Open access software tools and documentation
7. End of project workshops in Indonesia and Vietnam with government and NGOs.

General Impact:
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Mangrove forests are a globally important yet threatened ecosystem being significant for carbon storage, coastal resilience, biodiversity and local livelihoods. With climate change these environments are expected to be under increasing pressure due to increasing sea levels and storm frequency. Quantifying the economic value of ecosystems is difficult but this project will provide a model for the mangrove ecosystems in Vietnam and Indonesia providing the ability to make a more accurate economic case for mangrove management and restoration. Restoration projects have in many instances failed, this project will provide new and improved understand of the drivers and tipping points associated with lateral mangrove dynamics and thus improve the success of restoration projects. A near real-time monitoring system for detecting mangrove change will also be created. This will provide new information on location of changes, the rate of changes and the hotspots of change which were not previously known and therefore allowing a focusing of resources for mangrove management.