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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.