Assoc. Professor Tom Worthington

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge. My research aims to inform the conservation and restoration of vegetated coastal ecosystems, such as mangrove forests, seagrass meadows and saltmarshes. For the past eight years, I have headed the Global Coastal Wetlands Lab at the University of Cambridge. We work closely with collaborators at conservation organisations such as The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International and WWF to develop scientifically rigorous research that is applied to on-the-ground conservation action. Our research is largely based on using remote sensing and large datasets to support the conservation of these ecosystems from landscape to global scales. 

Research in the Global Coastal Wetlands Lab focuses on four themes: (1) mapping the extent of the world’s coastal wetlands as a framework to understand drivers of change, quantify ecosystem services and develop conservation strategies; (2) developing robust estimates of the potential to restore coastal ecosystems and tracking the progress of that restoration towards meeting global biodiversity and climate commitments; (3) quantifying the value of these ecosystems in terms of climate change mitigation, fisheries provision and coastal defence;  and (4) understanding how people and communities interact with coastal ecosystems. This research has significant conservation impact, such as providing the scientific basis for the $4 billion Mangrove Breakthrough, an initiative aimed at securing the future of 15 million hectares of mangroves globally.