GlobWetland II

The overall objective of Globwetland-II (GW-II) is to facilitate the integration of remote sensing techniques into the conservation and management of wetlands. GW-II will develop a G-WOS (Global Wetland Observing System) pilot system for the production of a number of wetland related geo-information maps and indicators but also demonstrate the capability of the system for 200 wetland sites and surrounding areas of the Southern and Eastern part of the Mediterranean basin.

The project is intended to serve the needs of many wetland conservation practitioners from the wetlands managers up to the stakeholders of the Ramsar Convention. The targeted user communities of the project are the Ramsar Administrative Authorities and National Focal Points of the subject countries and their supporting conservation agencies.

The project team will apply three major instruments to achieve the ambitious objectives of GlobWetland II, the active involvement of users, capacity building and the provision of prototype products together with instruments to integrate and extrapolate the use of Earth Observation within the users range of activities.

To demonstrate and ensure the use of the GW-II system the user will be provided with the system software and prototypes. The user will also be trained to the use of the prototype products and software.

Wetlands conservation and management is one of the many thematic domains in which satellites observations together with novel and cutting edge geo-spatial technologies have contributed to improve the assessment and monitoring of essential wetland ecosystem variables by wetland managers and local territorial authorities.

Geo-spatial analysis and modelling tools as used in the predecessor project GlobeWetland I has demonstrated how satellite Earth Observation technology can be a cost-effective and productive tool for the Ramsar Convention and for the conservation and management of wetlands in overall. In GlobeWetland II the establishment of EO-based services to support the inventory, mapping, monitoring and assessment of wetlands ecosystems will be evaluated especially to build the foundation in the Ramsar community for a wide scale deployment of a Global Wetland Observing System.

The GW-II system which is based on satellite Earth Observation technologies and state-of-the-art geo-spatial technologies can support the inventories especially in the countries in the coastal catchment basins of the Southern and Eastern of the Mediterranean Sea that have not achieved their national inventory. Inventory and delineation of wetlands is one of the major basic steps to establish their conservation and management. The coastal catchment basins of the Southern and Eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, from Morocco to Turkey, are of particular interest for biodiversity due to the fact that several endemic species listed as critically endangered or extirpated by the IUCN.

The GlobWetland II project is funded by the Data User Element (DUE). The Data User Element (DUE) is a programmatic component of the 3rd Earth Observation Envelope Programme (EOEP-3), an optional programme of the European Space Agency.