Episode 12: Assessing Sargassum landings through interviews with Paola Diaz

In this episode we talk to Paola Díaz a biologist from Honduras currently studying a masters in Integrated Management of Tropical Coastal Areas at the University of Costa Rica. Her upcoming project with Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología at the University of Costa Rica involve the documentation of the arrivals of Sargassum to Central America. According to her most people think of Sargassum as a problem but in the recent years more and more people also see it as an opportunity and wake-up call as a result of environmental impacts.

- Her studies in Coastal Management(5:25)

- Sargassum situation in Costa Rica (9:05; 11:00)

- Using interviews and Epicollect 5 to document Sargassum landings in Costa Rica(9:45)

- How she is planning on collecting data from remote beaches (12:34)

- Working together with NGOs that monitor beaches and hotels that have beaches (13:50)

- Plans to involve local community: first make local connections, then give locals information and then interview them to learn how they are experiencing Sargassum (15:40)

- Interview method that is standardized and used in different places in the Caribbean (17:30)

- First they plan informative webinars for NGOs and government and then practical webinars for people who will collect data (18:45)

Learn more about Paola’s work:

֍ Research gate profile with publications

֍ Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología Instagram

֍ Paola’s Instagram

֍ Paola’s twitter

֍ Become a Sargassum citizen scientists:

1. Download Epicollect5 for iphones

Download Epicollect5 for Android

2. Within the Epicollect5 download the projects Sargassum Watch (English) or Monitoreo de Sargassum (Spanish) if you want to collect full data sets or EZ Sargassum, Sargazo facil (Spanish) or Sargasse facile(French) to just snap pictures

3. Take pictures of the beach every time you visit even if there is none

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