| Summary: | Publication status: Published Funder: Bezos Earth Fund <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec><jats:title>Aim</jats:title><jats:p>Tidal marsh ecosystems are heavily impacted by human activities, highlighting a pressing need to address gaps in our knowledge of their distribution. To better understand the global distribution and changes in tidal marsh extent, and identify opportunities for their conservation and restoration, it is critical to develop a spatial knowledge base of their global occurrence. Here, we develop a globally consistent tidal marsh distribution map for the year 2020 at 10‐m resolution.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Location</jats:title><jats:p>Global.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Time period</jats:title><jats:p>2020.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Major taxa studied</jats:title><jats:p>Tidal marshes.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods</jats:title><jats:p>To map the location of the world's tidal marshes at 10‐m resolution, we applied a random forest classification model to Earth observation data from the year 2020. We trained the classification model with a reference dataset developed to support distribution mapping of coastal ecosystems, and predicted the spatial distribution of tidal marshes between 60° N and 60° S. We validated the tidal marsh map using standard accuracy assessment methods, with our final map having an overall accuracy score of 0.85.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>We estimate the global extent of tidal marshes in 2020 to be 52,880 km<jats:sup>2</jats:sup> (95% CI: 32,030 to 59,780 km<jats:sup>2</jats:sup>) distributed across 120 countries and territories. Tidal marsh distribution is centred in temperate and Arctic regions, with nearly half of the ...
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