This project was funded by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs initiatives program (OESI) and involved a collaboration among the following institutions:

• Project Reports and Data Main Report Remote Sensing in Support of Ecosystem Management Treaties and Transboundary Conservation (November 2005, 700KB PDF, 98 pages) Laguna Merin Case Study Final Technical Report (April 2006, 1.1 MB PDF, 15 pages) Laguna Merin Case Study: Summary Report (August 2005; 280KB PDF) English Version Versión Español Versão Portugese Report on the Rapid Ecological Assessment, March 2004 / Informe sobre la evaluacion ecologica rapida, marzo 2004 English Version (1.2MB PDF) Version Espanol (548KB PDF) Report on the Rapid Ecological Assessment, October 2004 / Informe sobre la evaluacion ecologica rapida, octubre 2004 English Version (1.5MB PDF) Versión Español (890KB PDF) Diversidad Analysis of Biodiversity Hotspots (November 2003, 7.5 MB PDF) Report on Laguna Merin Field Visit, 8-12 November 2003 (November 2003, 660 KB PDF) Doctoral Dissertation (Dec 2007) on Laguna Merin of team member Valdir Stanke (formerly of IBAMA). Data Field Survey Data / Datos de estudio de campo ArcView Shapefile (116KB zip file) Excel Spreadsheet (148KB) Landsat Images for path 222 and row 83 by date (please contact SEDAC user services using the link in the footer to request that these data be sent to you from our archives) 25 nov 1984 12 sept 1986 10 may 1987 26 sept 2000 12 jun 2002 19 nov 2002 Other Materials Project Brochure (~600KB PDF) English Version Versión Español Versão Portugese

  The Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, USA
• The Remote Sensing Center (CSR) of the Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais (IBAMA), Brazil
• The Programa para la Conservación de la Biodiversidad y Desarrollo Sustentable de Los Bañados del Este (PROBIDES), Uruguay

In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s International Division provided technical assistance. The project duration was two years (October 2003-September 2005).

Problem Addressed
The project focused on the utilization of satellite remote sensing data to improve the effectiveness of ecosystem-oriented multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). These agreements include, among others, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the World Heritage Convention, and UNESCO Biosphere Reserves. These conventions and site designations serve to protect natural resources and biodiversity of international importance, yet they are often constrained by lack of data and information to support implementation. The project tested applications of remote sensing for wetland delineation and conservation priority setting on a complex of wetlands on the Brazilian and Uruguayan sides of Laguna Merin, the second largest freshwater lake in South America (after Lake Titicaca). The region's biodiversity is threatened by expanding rice culture, agrochemical pollution, and plantation forests. Figures 1 and 2 (below) show the location of Laguna Merin in South America and Landsat thumbnail images of the lake, respectively.

Results
The project had three components. The first component involved a literature review and an inventory examining treaty-specific provisions with regards to ecosystem management, and developing a list of remote sensing instruments and applications that are relevant to those provisions. This includes an examination of treaty monitoring and reporting requirements that could be supported by remote sensing. The report developed for this component also includes discussion on the utilization of remote sensing for transboundary conservation. This report is available for download from the top of the table at right.

The second component was to develop a pilot application of remote sensing applied to two 40 square kilometer regions directly across from eachother on Laguna Merin: the area surrounding Rio Tacuari on the Uruguayan side of the lake, and the area surrounding Arroio del Rei on the Brazilian side. The pilot study involved remote sensing and two rounds of field work in March and October 2004. The final technical report for this component of the project is available in the "Laguna Merin Case Study" section of the table at right.

The third component was a user workshop in which the results of components one and two were presented. This workshop was held at IBAMA headquarters in Brasilia, Brazil, on July 14, 2005, in conjunction with the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology. The workshop involved policy makers from the governments of Brazil and Uruguay as well as remote sensing experts and conservationists. A summary report on the Laguna Merin field study was distributed at this workshop, and a special session of the Society for Conservation Biology meeting on July 16. This summary report is available for download at right.

Landsat scenes (for 1984, 1986, 1987, 2000 and 2002) along with all field data and an associated shape file, are also available for download from the table at right.

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	Figure 2. Landsat Image Mosaic of Laguna Merín, Southeastern Brazil and Northeastern Uruguay (22 April 2001)

Figure 1. (A) The Global Land Cover 2000 land cover classification for South America; and (B) An analysis utilizing the software Diversidad found that Laguna Merín showed up on the continental scale as having high levels of landscape diversity, which translates to high potential biodiversity.