The SargAdapt Good Practice Guide Series has been launched to provide easy-to-read, straightforward, technical advice to Caribbean stakeholders facing this ‘sargassum crisis’. This volume in the series provides a simple, low technology, rapid method of measuring the amount of sargassum stranding along shorelines. It has been extracted from the more comprehensive Sargassum Monitoring Protocol (SMP- Drones).

Efforts to mitigate damage and adapt to this new hazard, by clearing beaches and developing uses for sargassum are still being hampered because we do not know how much sargassum is stranding on the vast majority of beaches. This sargassum monitoring protocol is intended to fill this knowledge gap by encouraging stakeholders across the Caribbean to begin monitoring the amount of sargassum that is stranding on multiple beaches. Such information, especially if collected using a standard method, could really help coastal managers and business entrepreneurs by showing them how much sargassum is stranding, when and where.

How to Cite:

Small, M., J. Irvine, K. Baldwin, J. Weekes and H.A. Oxenford (2022). Sargassum Monitoring Protocol: monitoring sargassum abundance using beach surveys. SargAdapt Good Practice Guide Series: 2. University of the West Indies, Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (UWI-CERMES), Barbados, 15 pp.