Wetlands play a vital role in society, yet they remain among the most threatened ecosystems on Earth. In an effort to preserve wetlands, ESA began the GlobWetland project in 2003 to address these threats using satellite imagery. Three years later, the wetland and scientific communities are reviewing the role of Earth observation technologies in wetland preservation.
Over one hundred wetland and Earth observation (EO) experts from around the world gathered at ESA’s ‘GlobWetland Symposium: Looking at wetlands from space’ in Frascati, Italy, from 19 to 20 October to discuss the project’s achievements, the latest developments in EO for inventorying, monitoring and assessing wetlands and identifying the key scientific, technical and policy-relevant challenges for the future.
GlobWetland is working in collaboration with the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, which was signed in 1971 in response to the degradation of wetlands throughout much of the 20th Century and the growing understanding of their vital importance. Today more than 1 424 wetlands have been designated as Wetlands of International Importance, a total area of 129 million hectares.
Source: ESA
