VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT OF AQUACULTURE USING GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS) AND REMOTELY SENSED DATA

摘要

The Philippines is one of the top countries in fish production using aquaculture. Through the use of remotely sensed data, such as LiDAR and satellite imagery, with the aid of geographic information system (GIS) software, several methodologies have been developed in order to map aquaculture areas. Vulnerability of features is assessed by incorporating the potential impacts, which is the combination of exposure and sensitivity, and the adaptive capacity. The exposure is the severity of the physical environment conditions that drive alterations in the state of biophysical systems. The present characteristics which defines the current state of the resource from different properties that is from climate change is the sensitivity. Adaptive capacity is the ability of the system to cope up with the changes in the environment. In this study, a GIS-based methodology is implemented to assess the vulnerability of aquaculture due to climate change and anthropogenic activities. The potential impact is computed using the exposure data from a related study conducted in the country and the sensitivity layer outputs (proximity to urban areas, elevation, and type of structure) from different GIS tools. The adaptive capacity scores, which are mainly based on the adjacent habitats, are also assigned using the outputs of GIS tools and socio-economic factors. The combination of the potential impact and the adaptive capacity are used for the final computation of vulnerability scores. As a result of this study, a vulnerability assessment methodology is developed and used to create a vulnerability map of aquaculture.