TY - CHAP
T1 - The extent and distribution of the world’s wetlands
AU - Davidson, Nick C.
AU - Finlayson, C Max
AU - Fluet-Chouinard, Etienne
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023/1/1
Y1 - 2023/1/1
N2 - Knowledge of the geographic distribution, types, and change in extent over time of wetland ecosystems informs policy, planning, and decision-making and has long been recognised by the Ramsar Convention as essential to achieve its aims of the conservation and wise use of all wetlands. Yet, only one-third of Ramsar Contracting Parties have reported having completed a national wetland inventory. Wetland remote sensing can fill this gap by providing geospatial datasets at the relevant scales and levels of detail. Recent information suggests that the global area of wetlands is approximately 12-16×106km2, but gaps exist for regions and wetland classes, so current estimates are likely still underestimates. The most global wetland area is inland natural wetlands, with much smaller areas of coastal wetlands and human-made wetlands. The largest wetland areas are in Asia, North America and Latin America, and the Caribbean. The extent of complete national wetland inventories is improving and has the potential to provide valuable data for comparison and benchmarking other mapping approaches.
AB - Knowledge of the geographic distribution, types, and change in extent over time of wetland ecosystems informs policy, planning, and decision-making and has long been recognised by the Ramsar Convention as essential to achieve its aims of the conservation and wise use of all wetlands. Yet, only one-third of Ramsar Contracting Parties have reported having completed a national wetland inventory. Wetland remote sensing can fill this gap by providing geospatial datasets at the relevant scales and levels of detail. Recent information suggests that the global area of wetlands is approximately 12-16×106km2, but gaps exist for regions and wetland classes, so current estimates are likely still underestimates. The most global wetland area is inland natural wetlands, with much smaller areas of coastal wetlands and human-made wetlands. The largest wetland areas are in Asia, North America and Latin America, and the Caribbean. The extent of complete national wetland inventories is improving and has the potential to provide valuable data for comparison and benchmarking other mapping approaches.
KW - Coastal/marine natural wetlands
KW - Human-made wetlands
KW - Inland natural wetlands
KW - Remote sensing
KW - Wetland inventory
KW - Wetland types
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UR - https://shop.elsevier.com/books/ramsar-wetlands/gell/978-0-12-817803-4
U2 - 10.1016/B978-0-12-817803-4.00006-1
DO - 10.1016/B978-0-12-817803-4.00006-1
M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)
AN - SCOPUS:85176869354
SN - 9780128178041
SP - 91
EP - 114
BT - Ramsar wetlands
A2 - Gell, Peter A
A2 - Davidson, Nic C
A2 - Finlayson, C Max
PB - Elsevier
CY - Netherlands
ER -