A new global wetlands map
A new global map of the world鈥檚 wetlands has been produced by an international research team led by former master鈥檚 student Etienne Fluet-Chouinard and Prof. Bernhard Lehner of 平特五不中鈥檚 Department of Geography. In a paper published in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment, the researchers present a method producing a map in finer detail than previously available. This is made possible by using topographic information combined with satellite measurements generated by French collaborators from the Laboratoire d鈥橢tudes du Rayonnement et de la Mati猫re en Astrophysique et Atmosph猫res and Estellus.
The map represents a long-term baseline of the world鈥檚 wetland areas, including areas of artificial inundation and some waterlogged soils, based on measurements made between 1993 and 2004. 鈥淭his map represents a great asset for scientists to study large inundation patterns and wetland ecosystems at the global scale,鈥� says Fluet-Chouinard, now a PhD Student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison鈥檚 Center for Limnology.
Fluet-Chouinard, E., Lehner, B., Rebelo, L.M., Papa, F., Hamilton, S.K., (2015) Development of a global inundation map at high spatial resolution from topographic downscaling of coarse-scale remote sensing data, Remote Sensing of Environment, 158: 348-361.
