Abstract
Abstract—Landsat 5 TM imagery was used to study the distribution of coastal habitats along the Eastern African coast, from Mnazi Bay (Tanzania) south to Pemba Bay (Mozambique), across the mouth of the Ruvuma estuary and the Quirimbas archipelago. Eight classes of coastal habitats, adapted from the Ramsar convention classification –intertidal, and subtidal –were mapped at a coarse descriptive resolution using an unsupervised classification procedure. Results for 1995 and 2005 are presented, for the entire coastline, and in detail, for the areas of the Ruvuma estuary, Palma, Mocimboa da Praia, and Ibo Island. Results were evaluated using data from ground truthing excursions during 2006. For each date, over 3,300 km2 of coastal habitats were classified. The classes with the largest coverage were “permanent shallow marine water” (>1,500 km2), followed by “intertidal flats” (>650 km2), “mangroves”, and “coral reefs” (covering > 320 km2 each). Estimated overall thematic accuracy for 2005 exceeded 70%. The paper discusses a number of aspects that may influence the accuracy of the final classification and limit time-change analysis to a few of the habitats considered. The resulting spatially referenced thematic maps constitute a useful tool to aide management actions along this coast and are a valuable reference point for conservation and research planning. Keywords: Remote-sensing, satellite imagery, classification accuracy, tropical coastal habitats, transboundary, Mozambique, Tanzania
Highlights
The Eastern African coast is home to a diversity of tropical and subtropical species and habitats and a growing human population, presently over 22 million (WWF, 2002)
This paper describes the mapping of major coastal habitats undertaken in the framework of Transmap project Work Package 2 – Mapping habitat types and current uses, for the coast covered by the “Mtwara-Quirimbas Complex” site of global importance, in the Tanzania/Mozambique transboundary area, from Mnazi bay, Tanzania, on through the Quirimbas archipelago, and down to Pemba Bay, Mozambique, along c. 350 km of coastline (Figure 1)
The largest class found corresponded to shallow marine water, covering over 1,500 km2, about half the total area classified as coastal habitats
Summary
The Eastern African coast is home to a diversity of tropical and subtropical species and habitats and a growing human population, presently over 22 million (WWF, 2002). Within this site, two parks have been established, viz. The 650 km Mnazi Bay - Ruvuma Estuary Marine Park (MBREMP) created in 1999-2000 on the coast of Tanzania (IUCN, 2005) and the 7,500 km Quirimbas National Park, established in 2002 by the Government of Mozambique in the framework of WWF’s “Gift to the Earth” program. This park encompasses a 1,500 km marine area with a 100 km coastline, including eleven islands of the Quirimbas archipelago (WWF, 2002)
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