Did you know that vast rafts of holopelagic sargassum (brown algae) – some the size of 200 adjoining football pitches – seasonally wash ashore and decompose on beaches requiring extensive clearing or management? The seaweed causes social, environmental, and economic damage in affected areas from Mexico to Ghana.
The WUN-supported research consortium “Building capacity to monitor and manage sargassum seaweed inundations in Western Africa (SARCAP)” engages citizens, specifically school children and professionals, in West Africa to monitor, manage and use sargassum, as little is known about the causes and consequences of sargassum in coastal West Africa including the frequency or location of events, the biology of the sargassum, the impacts, and potential uses.
Watch the video to learn more about their work.
