Status of tidal marsh mapping for blue carbon inventories

Remote-sensing-based maps of tidal marshes, both of their extents and carbon stocks, will play a key role in conducting greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories.

The U.N. Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre has produced a new Global Distribution of Salt Marsh dataset that estimates global salt marsh area at 5.5 Mha.

A Tier 1–2 GHG Inventory of U.S. Coastal Wetlands has been developed using the NOAA Coastal-Change Analysis Program Landsat-based land cover maps as a primary dataset.

180Successful mapping of tidal marsh biomass with optical satellite images provides opportunity to improve GHG Inventories.

Further work is needed to map tidal marsh salinity gradients, the extent of tidal vs. non-tidal marshes, methane emissions, and high-resolution elevation.