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Decadal biomass and area changes in a multi-species meadow in Singapore: application of multi-resolution satellite imagery

  • James F. Bramante

    James F. Bramante is a PhD candidate in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering. As a Master’s student at the National University of Singapore, his research focused on the application of remote sensing for coastal habitat mapping and monitoring. His research has since expanded to coastal geomorphology of shallow carbonate environments in the tropical Pacific. He is particularly interested in the feedbacks between wave forcing and behavior of fringing reef organisms that produce reef morphology and encourage reef island formation/growth.

     ORCID logo EMAIL logo     , Suryati M. Ali

    Suryati M. Ali is a research associate with the Ecological Monitoring, Informatics and Dynamics Research Group in the Tropical Marine Science Institute. Her work primarily focuses on marine environmental monitoring, impact assessment and ecosystem dynamics. She has also led monitoring programmes to assess environmental risks and impacts, through the integrative use of numerical models and field observations. Her current research interest centers around understanding how seagrasses respond to environmental changes and developing indicators for detection of disturbance to be implemented in routine monitoring.

         , Alan D. Ziegler

    Alan D. Ziegler is a professor in the Geography Department, National University of Singapore. His research addresses the interactions of physical and ecological systems, with water resources serving as a common nexus. The work typically involves developing environmental monitoring programs that facilitate understanding catchment processes, as they vary both naturally and anthropogenically over different spatial and temporal scales.

         and Tsai M. Sin

    Tsai M. Sin was a senior research fellow at the Tropical Marine Science Institute, National University of Singapore. Her research focused on shallow marine ecology and the complex interplay between water quality, community dynamics, and habitat health. During preparation of this manuscript, she passed away. She was an extraordinary scientist and mentor, and is sorely missed.
Published/Copyright: April 24, 2018
Botanica Marina
From the journal Botanica Marina Volume 61 Issue 3

Abstract

Due to the dearth of information regarding current and changing health of seagrass habitat in the Indo-Pacific region, prior research into global trends of seagrass habitat health has included little data from this region, even though it contains the highest abundance and species diversity of seagrass globally. This study evaluates the suitability of four satellite sensors [Worldview-2 (WV2), Advanced Land Imager (ALI), Enhanced Thematic Mapper+ (ETM+), Operational Land Imager (OLI)] for determining trends in seagrass habitat extent over the past decade in Singapore’s largest seagrass meadow, and thus contributes incrementally to the data available for regional or global analyses of seagrass habitat health. Using all four sensors, we find that seagrass bed extent at Pulau Semakau, Singapore, declined 37% from 2001 to 2015 at an average rate of 3.9% year−1. Using very high spatial resolution satellite images, we calculate that, although bed extent decreased 18% from April 2011 to June 2013, median meadow biomass increased, indicating that complex meadow dynamics may be mediating seagrass response to anthropogenic and environmental pressures. From a technological perspective, we find that, despite their lower spatial resolution, freely available satellite images can be used to measure the extent of a narrow, multi-species seagrass bed and to determine decadal trends reliably.

Keywords: biomass; monitoring; remote sensing; seagrass; Singapore

About the authors

James F. Bramante

James F. Bramante is a PhD candidate in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering. As a Master’s student at the National University of Singapore, his research focused on the application of remote sensing for coastal habitat mapping and monitoring. His research has since expanded to coastal geomorphology of shallow carbonate environments in the tropical Pacific. He is particularly interested in the feedbacks between wave forcing and behavior of fringing reef organisms that produce reef morphology and encourage reef island formation/growth.

Suryati M. Ali

Suryati M. Ali is a research associate with the Ecological Monitoring, Informatics and Dynamics Research Group in the Tropical Marine Science Institute. Her work primarily focuses on marine environmental monitoring, impact assessment and ecosystem dynamics. She has also led monitoring programmes to assess environmental risks and impacts, through the integrative use of numerical models and field observations. Her current research interest centers around understanding how seagrasses respond to environmental changes and developing indicators for detection of disturbance to be implemented in routine monitoring.

Alan D. Ziegler

Alan D. Ziegler is a professor in the Geography Department, National University of Singapore. His research addresses the interactions of physical and ecological systems, with water resources serving as a common nexus. The work typically involves developing environmental monitoring programs that facilitate understanding catchment processes, as they vary both naturally and anthropogenically over different spatial and temporal scales.

Tsai M. Sin

Tsai M. Sin was a senior research fellow at the Tropical Marine Science Institute, National University of Singapore. Her research focused on shallow marine ecology and the complex interplay between water quality, community dynamics, and habitat health. During preparation of this manuscript, she passed away. She was an extraordinary scientist and mentor, and is sorely missed.

Acknowledgments

This research was internally funded by the Tropical Marine Science Institute at the National University of Singapore, internal grant no. N-347-000-014-001. We would like to thank DigitalGlobe and Intergraph® for providing one of the Worldview-2 images. We would like to thank TeamSeagrass, Singapore’s National Parks Board, Singapore’s National Environment Agency, and HSBC Project Semakau for help in the field.

  1. Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare to have no conflict of interests regarding this article.

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Received: 2017-8-25
Accepted: 2018-3-28
Published Online: 2018-4-24
Published in Print: 2018-6-27

©2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. In this issue
  3. Editorial
  4. Seagrass research in Southeast Asia
  5. Ecology
  6. The diet and feeding rates of gastropod grazers in Singapore’s seagrass meadows
  7. Complex yet fauna-deficient seagrass ecosystems at risk in southern Myanmar
  8. Species richness effects on the vegetative expansion of transplanted seagrass in Indonesia
  9. Spatial and temporal distribution of submerged aquatic vegetation in a tropical coastal lagoon habitat in Viet Nam
  10. Species diversity and distribution of seagrasses from the South Andaman, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India
  11. Genetics and physiology
  12. Population genetic subdivision of seagrasses, Syringodium isoetifolium and Thalassia hemprichii, in the Indonesian Archipelago
  13. Photosynthetic and antioxidant responses of the tropical intertidal seagrasses Halophila ovalis and Thalassia hemprichii to moderate and high irradiances
  14. Physiological responses of Enhalus acoroides to osmotic stress
  15. Management and applications
  16. Seagrass in Southeast Asia: a review of status and knowledge gaps, and a road map for conservation
  17. Decadal biomass and area changes in a multi-species meadow in Singapore: application of multi-resolution satellite imagery
  18. A proposed decision support tool for prioritising conservation planning of Southeast Asian seagrass meadows: combined approaches based on ecosystem services and vulnerability analyses
https://doi.org/10.1515/bot-2017-0064
Keywords for this article
biomass; monitoring; remote sensing; seagrass; Singapore

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. In this issue
  3. Editorial
  4. Seagrass research in Southeast Asia
  5. Ecology
  6. The diet and feeding rates of gastropod grazers in Singapore’s seagrass meadows
  7. Complex yet fauna-deficient seagrass ecosystems at risk in southern Myanmar
  8. Species richness effects on the vegetative expansion of transplanted seagrass in Indonesia
  9. Spatial and temporal distribution of submerged aquatic vegetation in a tropical coastal lagoon habitat in Viet Nam
  10. Species diversity and distribution of seagrasses from the South Andaman, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India
  11. Genetics and physiology
  12. Population genetic subdivision of seagrasses, Syringodium isoetifolium and Thalassia hemprichii, in the Indonesian Archipelago
  13. Photosynthetic and antioxidant responses of the tropical intertidal seagrasses Halophila ovalis and Thalassia hemprichii to moderate and high irradiances
  14. Physiological responses of Enhalus acoroides to osmotic stress
  15. Management and applications
  16. Seagrass in Southeast Asia: a review of status and knowledge gaps, and a road map for conservation
  17. Decadal biomass and area changes in a multi-species meadow in Singapore: application of multi-resolution satellite imagery
  18. A proposed decision support tool for prioritising conservation planning of Southeast Asian seagrass meadows: combined approaches based on ecosystem services and vulnerability analyses
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