Detailed sea level rise methods:

Materials:

1. ecosystem map (vector)
2. Digital Elevation Model map (raster)

Steps:

• Locate all coastal areas
  • Merge all ecosystems of Panama to obtain a single outline of the country
  • Perform 1km buffer inland (-1km)
• Locate all areas with 0-1m elevation
  • Reclassify the raster values of a Digital Elevation Model. Each pixel is either 0-1m in elevation, or it is not 0-1m in elevation
• Convert raster to polygon = "red-zones"
• Clip 0-1m high "red-zones" to the ecosystem buffer (coasts)
• Calculate Geometry (area) of the 0-1m high red-zones in each ecosystem
• Divide the red-zone area by the ecosystem area in which it lies
• Assign a numerical rank based on these densities (scale of 0-14)

Digital Elevation Model

Sea level rise illustration:

The blue outlines represent the coastal areas of "ecosystem patch #823." The tiny green dots are areas of 0-1 meter in elevation. The red zone density was calculated by dividing the area of all red zones in an ecosystem patch by its total area (regardless of coastal area).

Data sources: UNESCO ecosystem map, USGS Digital Elevation Model