7/31/2019 Campus Magazine: Mapping the Mangroves

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MappingtheMangroves

Ahmad Mohammed Hiasat , a student at Qatar

Leadership Academy and a QFI Alumnus, shares with

Campus a journey of knowledge and service.

ECOPAL

7/31/2019 Campus Magazine: Mapping the Mangroves

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/campus-magazine-mapping-the-mangroves 2/2492012 issue 12

On the occasion of Earth Day, students, teachers,

Qatar Foundation International (QFI) staff and

scientists came together for the rst-of-a-kind

‘Mapping the mangroves’ project launched byQFI in partnership with Conservation Interna-

tional (CI), to explore and map the mangroves

of Qatar at Al Dakhira.

For those out there who don’t know what mangroves are, this is an

awesome denition that I learned during the project: “Mangroves are

amazing trees that have managed to adapt to growing in an inhospi-

table salty tide region between the sea and the land.”

‘Mapping the mangroves’ is a project focused on increasing the

awareness about the preservation of both Qatar’s and the world’s

mangroves. It is aiming to connect a global network of active environ-

mental citizens who will explore, collect, map and broadcast informa-

tion about the mangroves online. The freely available collection of

information could then be used by students and educators internation-

ally. The information is uploaded using the tool ‘Ushahidi’ which allows

people to upload GPS-tagged data, such as geographical coordinates,

photographs, videos, and textual data, from smart phone devices.

Moreover, when the data is being uploaded, Ushahidi generates visu-

alizations for this data, which allows people to see a map of the distri-

bution of the world’s mangroves.

Qatar’s shores host several mangroves – the largest and the oldest

is located in Al Dakhira. It is home to a variety of marine life, including

a new species of sea slugs that had been found recently by a member

of the Qatar National History Group, and Avicennia Marina - known

as the Grey Mangrove. These mangroves represent a very essential

part of Qatar’s environmental heritage and future. However despite

their importance to the Qatari environment, as well as to the world’s,

the fact is mangroves are so far not getting much attention. “Mapping

Mangroves is an important awareness-raising campaign that high-

lights the critical role of mangroves in storm and sheries protection

and reducing climate change,” said Dr Leah Karrer of Conservation

International during the expedition.

The Al Dakhira project was indeed a very exciting experience by

which we have learned a lot about the mangroves and the impact that

it has on the ecosystem and the environment. We spent an extensive

time exploring Al Dakhira mangroves, collecting data on a variety of

marine life and plants, mapping the geographical coordinates of the

marine life and broadcasting the information to QFI’s Ushahidi online

mangroves map: http://mappingthemangroves.qf.org/. We learned

a lot about the different kinds of species present there, as well as the

threats that the mangroves are facing.

FACts AbOut mAngrOvEs:

Mangroves play a big role in climate change. Mangroves are one of the three ecosystems that have the ability to store blue carbon, the

carbon stored by coastal and marine ecosystems. When carbon is stored, greenhouse gases are removed from the atmosphere and the

effect of global warming is reduced.

Mangroves provide a home for turtles, particularly young ones, for shelter and food.

Mangroves provide one of the basic food chain resources for other organisms, such as migrating birds, camels, shrimp and sh.

Mangroves help in sand storms and sheries protection, by reducing wind and wave action in shallow shoreline areas.

Mangroves prevent coastal erosion, which is very important for a low-lying country like Qatar.