Developing A System to Map and Monitor Beached Sargassum on the Caribbean Coast of Mexico

Over the last decade, the beaching of massive quantities of sargassum in the Caribbean has become a major problem. Relatively few studies have focused on beached sargassum which has numerous negative environmental, social and economic impacts. To aid understanding of the problem and develop approaches to effectively manage it, a satellite-based mapping and monitoring service is being developed on the basis of information generated in a set of user needs workshops. Here, we report on the foundations of this mapping and monitoring service. In particular, user needs obtained from a large and diverse set of stakeholders are used to identify appropriate satellite remote sensing systems to use as data sources. The system will use mainly PlanetScope and Sentinel-2 data to meet the spatio-temporal demands of users. It is planned to develop an operational system that may if desired be extended to the Caribbean as a whole and beyond.