Worthington, Thomas A., Spalding, Mark D, Landis, Emily, Maxwell, Tania L., Navarro, Alejandro, Smart, Lindsey S., and Murray, Nicholas J. (2024) The distribution of global tidal marshes from Earth observation data. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 33 (8). e13852.

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Abstract

Aim: Tidal marsh ecosystems are heavily impacted by human activities, highlighting a pressing need to address gaps in our knowledge of their distribution. To better understand the global distribution and changes in tidal marsh extent, and identify opportunities for their conservation and restoration, it is critical to develop a spatial knowledge base of their global occurrence. Here, we develop a globally consistent tidal marsh distribution map for the year 2020 at 10-m resolution.

Location: Global.

Time period: 2020.

Major taxa studied: Tidal marshes.

Methods: To map the location of the world's tidal marshes at 10-m resolution, we applied a random forest classification model to Earth observation data from the year 2020. We trained the classification model with a reference dataset developed to support distribution mapping of coastal ecosystems, and predicted the spatial distribution of tidal marshes between 60° N and 60° S. We validated the tidal marsh map using standard accuracy assessment methods, with our final map having an overall accuracy score of 0.85.

Results: We estimate the global extent of tidal marshes in 2020 to be 52,880 km2 (95% CI: 32,030 to 59,780 km2) distributed across 120 countries and territories. Tidal marsh distribution is centred in temperate and Arctic regions, with nearly half of the global extent of tidal marshes occurring in the temperate Northern Atlantic (45%) region. At the national scale, over a third of the global extent (18,510 km2; CI: 11,200–20,900) occurs within the USA.

Main conclusions: Our analysis provides the most detailed spatial data on global tidal marsh distribution to date and shows that tidal marshes occur in more countries and across a greater proportion of the world's coastline than previous mapping studies. Our map fills a major knowledge gap regarding the distribution of the world's coastal ecosystems and provides the baseline needed for measuring changes in tidal marsh extent and estimating their value in terms of ecosystem services.

Item ID:	85695
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1466-8238
Keywords:	coastal ecosystems, Earth observation, global distribution, remote sensing, salt marsh, tidal marsh
Copyright Information:	© 2024 The Authors. Global Ecology and Biogeography published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Funders:	Australian Research Council (ARC)
Projects and Grants:	ARC DE190100101
Date Deposited:	03 Jun 2025 01:30
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) @ 100%
SEO Codes:	18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1802 Coastal and estuarine systems and management > 180299 Coastal and estuarine systems and management not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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