Webinars
Upcoming Webinars
Valuing Marine Ecosystem Services for Better Decisions
Wednesday, April 8, 1 pm US EDT/10 am US PDT/5 pm UTC/6 pm BST. Presented by: Angela Fletcher and Glen Delaney of Earth Economics. Description: Marine and coastal ecosystems provide many ecosystem services that are essential to human communities, including food, recreational opportunities, and protection of infrastructure from natural disasters. These benefits are not often framed in economic terms, which can lead to them being overlooked in decision-making. Communicating ecosystem services in economic terms can support more holistic decision-making that accounts for the full range of benefits these systems provide. In this webinar, Angela Fletcher and Glen Delaney of Earth Economics will introduce the fundamentals of ecosystem service valuation and demonstrate how they have applied these methods in marine and coastal contexts. Earth Economics is a nonprofit economic consultancy with 26 years of experience applying valuation techniques in decision-making, policy, and project implementation. They will begin with a brief overview of ecosystem services and valuation basics, then walk through three real-world case studies that illustrate how valuation can inform conservation, restoration, and policy decisions: a valuation study of kelp forests along the California coast; the use of valuation to inform a National Marine Sanctuary application for the St. George Unangan Heritage site; and how valuation can support funding for salmon habitat restoration in the Duckabush Estuary in Washington State.
Coastal Marine Litter Observatory: Combining drones and AI for real-time beach and coastal monitoring
Thursday, April 16, 10 am US EDT/7 am US PDT/2 pm UTC/3 pm BST/4 CEST/5 pm EEST. Presented by: Kostas Topouzelis of Scidrones. Description: Marine litter is a significant environmental problem that can dramatically affect flora and fauna and have severe economic impacts on coastal communities, tourism, and fisheries. Currently, most mapping protocols for marine litter in the coastal environment rely on conventional on-site sampling, with limited ability to spatially display concentrations of coastal zone marine waste. To provide real-time, actionable data, Scidrones has created the Coastal Marine Litter Observatory (CMLO), an online platform that detects, maps, and monitors marine litter in the coastal zone using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and machine learning. UAS aerial images – collected using the Scidrones data acquisition protocol and uploaded to the CMLO platform – provide wide area coverage of actual litter, and machine learning algorithms are used to detect marine litter and categorize it (i.e., plastic, paper, metal, cloth, glass and ceramic, rubber, and wood). Marine debris in the coastal zone is then visualized through high-resolution density maps and spatiotemporal analytics, enabling scalable, operational monitoring and empowering stakeholders to take precise, data-driven action for cleaner beaches and coastlines. A free trial covering 1 km of coastline is available, allowing users to test and explore the platform’s capabilities.
Past Webinars
New technologies to revolutionize sustainable fishing in the digital age: EDF’s Smart Boat Initiative
This webinar originally aired on 22 August, 2019. Pioneering technologies and new platforms can turn fishing vessels into “smart boats” and redefine fishing and how…
Management and evolution give hope to coral reefs facing the effects of climate change
This webinar originally aired on 1 August, 2019. A new study just published in Nature Climate Change shows that management that takes evolution and adaptation…
Financing Coral Reef Conservation and Management with Tourism-Related Tools
This webinar originally aired on 17 July, 2019. Coral reefs provide enormous economic value to humanity, and their value for recreation is one of the…
Conservation targets and how much of the world do we need to protect?
This webinar originally aired on 11 July, 2019. What should global conservation targets be beyond 2020? The Beyond the Aichi Targets Task Force, appointed by…
A Toolkit for Managing Cultural Resources in Marine Protected Areas
This webinar originally aired on 2 July, 2019. What are cultural resources anyway? Often MPA managers are experts in natural resources management, and lack background…
Massively Destructive Coral Reef Damage from Giant Clam Shell Digging in the South China Sea: Birth, Death and Rebirth
This webinar originally aired on 13 June, 2019. The South China Sea supplies approximately 15% of the world’s fish and helps support ~38 million coastal…
Finance Tools for Coral Reef Conservation: An Overview
This webinar originally aired on 05 June 2019. The Wildlife Conservation Society, in collaboration with the Conservation Finance Alliance and in support of the 50…
Building Knowledge, Capacity, and Collaborations to Develop Indicators for Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management in Case Studies across the World
This webinar originally aired on 22 May 2019. This webinar was presented by Beth Fulton of CSIRO and Keith Sainsbury of the University of Tasmania…
Current Actions of the West Coast Marine Debris Plans – a project of the West Coast Marine Debris Alliance
This webinar originally aired on 16 May, 2019. This webinar will provide insights and information on progress made along the US West Coast as a…
China’s Underwater Cultural Heritage in the South China Sea: Nanhai #1, A Window on the Maritime Silk Road
This webinar originally aired on 9 May, 2019. Description: Underwater Cultural Heritage can inform us about past events and seafaring cultures in powerful ways. China’s…