On March 11, 2025, CEARAC held a training course on remote sensing data analysis at the Prince of Songkla University, Thailand. This training was organized as requested by Dr. Anchana Prathep, Dean of Faculty of Science. She is a principal investigator of Thailand in an on-going project “Coastal ecosystems as nature climate solution in Asia,” which is carried out in an international project of Japan, Thailand and Indonesia, as a part of The East Asia Science and Innovation Area Joint Research Program (e-ASIA JRP*) which the Northwest Pacific Region Environmental Cooperation Center (NPEC), host organization of CEARAC, takes part in now. Dr. Terauchi, senior researcher of CEARAC, led two training sessions using CEARAC’s monitoring/assessment tools: Monitoring/Assessment of seawater quality with Global Eutrophication Watch, a cloud-based tool to assess the status of eutrophication; and seagrass mapping with Seagrass Mapper. There were 48 participants (university students, researchers and faculty members and so on) in the training in person or online.
Seagrass Mapper is one of the services of the NOWPAP Marine Environmental Watch of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan, which is operated by NPEC. CEARAC has continuously collected updated on-site data in the NOWPAP region and other regions around the world to enhance the function of the tool. Through this training in Thailand, it was expected to facilitate the use of Seagrass Mapper in the southeast Asian countries, resulting in collecting more on-site data in that area.
In the first training session (Monitoring/Assessment of seawater quality with Global Eutrophication Watch), following introduction by Dr. Terauchi of CEARAC’s activity for preliminary assessment of the eutrophication status, the trainees used Google Colabratory and worked on temporal analysis of ocean color data from the Marine Environment Watch Project and validated satellite-derived data against in-situ data. At present, people are concerned about the turbid water of Andaman Sea in Thailand, a marginal sea of the Indian Ocean, as it may be one of the causes of decreasing of seagrass beds, so the participants requested Dr. Terauchi to supply a high-resolution dataset in the Global Eutrophication Watch so as to be utilized for analysis of adjacent waters of Thailand. They also asked for implementation of a function for time series analysis into the tool.
In the second training session (Seagrass mapping), Dr. Terauchi explained the steps to be taken to activate Seagrass Mapper while demonstrating how to upload sample data of Nanao Bay (Japan) to the tool. At the same time, he suggested practical application of the tool, considering the current situation of seagrass beds in Thailand. In Thailand, as part of seagrass beds are above water at low tide, it is necessary to apply tidal correction when using Seagrass Mapper. Then, Dr. Terauchi introduced classification by Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) using red and near infrared values, which is useful for seagrass mapping at low tide; however, unfortunately Seagrass Mapper does not accept it at present. Because of scarce bathymetry data in many coastal areas in Thailand, he also taught the trainees how to mask deep-sea areas using bathymetry data estimated from satellite images as well as encouraged them to collect bathymetry data on their own using fish finders. After the training, there were many questions and feedbacks given from both in-the-venue participants and online ones to Dr. Terauchi, all of which can help CEARAC improve Seagrass Mapper to be more competent.
The training course in Thailand as an important step for CEARAC to advance conservation of seagrass beds and application of satellite remote sensing in assessing blue carbon ecosystems in Asia.
*The e-ASIA Joint Research Program (e-ASIA JRP), part of the Strategic International Collaborative Research Program (SICORP) executed by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), is an international joint initiative between public funding organizations of the East Asia Summit member countries, to promote multilateral joint research and research exchanges.
