A large number of global mangrove datasets currently exist, all quantifying a particular characteristic about mangrove forests, including extent, aboveground biomass and soil carbon. While these can all help satisfy SDGs, with so many datasets available, which one should you be using for your specific needs?
This is largely determined by what metric you need to measure and what reporting level that you aiming for. To help with this, we have made a Mangrove Dataset Selector application. Here you can select your priorities from a number of drop down menus and the tool will recommend the best dataset(s) based on your requirements.
Our goal is to provide a tool that can equip the user with the dataset that best suits their needs, providing an informed and transparent decision process.
For details on how to use the application, look in our About section or follow this example:
Given a country wants to report it's current mangrove extent and needs an up-to-date map to use, they would follow these steps:
First Priority: Select "Metric" from the drop-down menu and choose "extent" from the second menu
Second Priority: Select "Date Range", followed by "Recent Baseline"
Third Priority: Select "Spatial Resolution" and then "<50 m) from the drop-down menus
Finally, no fourth priority is needed, but this could be used if change products are also needed
Selecting "Apply filters" will bring up a text box which will provide a list of the datasets most applicable to the user's prefereneces that they provided. The dataset will appear on the background map and a link to the full data is provided in the text box.