# Comparative Impact Analysis of Cyclone Ana in the Mozambique Channel Using Satellite Data
## 4 Discussion
### Limitations  
In order to acquire land cover information, the 2020 ESA World Cover Map at 10 m resolution was leveraged. Globally, the classification map has an accuracy of 74.4%, thus meaning that more than 25.6% of the global map may be misclassified. This could imply that the mangrove extent might be different from ground validation, particularly as it dates from two years ago. In addition, the proportion of urban flooded area might equally be biased as urban settlements tend to appear differently across the globe, particularly on the African continent when compared to Europe, where the majority of the datasets' authors  
Figure 6: Flooding impact of TC Ana on Local Population over Sofala, Mozambique as a Measure of Distance from Healthy Mangrove Forests. In Sofala’s healthy mangrove ecosystem before compared to after the cyclone season (<0.1 changes in NDVI), the majority of people exposed to flooding occurred beyond 100 km away from the coast, with the closest vulnerable people at least 40 km away from the mangrove area. Despite there being some areas of high population density, depicted in red, in the close vicinity of the mangrove areas (20 km), these populations seemed to remain unaffected by flooding. are from. However, validation was done by expert local end-users in many countries of interest and was mitigated for as much as possible. As this classification uses both Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data, areas with persistent cloud cover in 2020 might result in misclassification at a fine scale due to the use of optical data (Sentinel-2). Cloud cover was also an issue when computing mangrove NDVI. Sentinel-2 data during the cyclone season was composited but still displayed 2.5% of cloud cover in some areas, thus affecting the NDVI change analysis at a fine scale, particularly in cloud-prone coastal areas around the city of Beira, Mozambique. Moreover, population-density data was gathered for the year 2018 in Madagascar and Mozambique. According to the World Bank, Mozambique's annual population growth in 2022 stood at 2.8% and Madagascar's at 2.6% [40]. In addition, internal migration due to the lack of economic opportunities or forced climate change-related displacement [39] may also affect population density in 2022 compared to 2018. For example, emigration from Zambezia to Sofala, in 2010 was estimated at 31,600-79,100 people [41]. Moreover, internal displacement is likely to be emphasized following the recent series of severe cyclones that hit coastal Mozambique in 2019, namely Idai and Kenneth and in Madagascar, TC Batsirai in early 2022. Studying the impact of cyclones and storms in terms of socio-ecological damage is vital. However, because many studies of cyclone impacts tend to be written in Portuguese, are outdated or non-existent, this hinders the potential to validate newer studies such as this one. In an attempt to provide immediate emergency response, the majority of impact assessments are enacted by humanitarian bodies and focus on immediate human impacts, and to a lesser extent the potential causes and buffers of TCs. As such, one of the original aims of this study was to predict whether storm Ana created stagnant bodies that promoted the appearance of water-borne diseases such as malaria. However, due to the impact of COVID-19 on field survey accessibility and funding, the earliest study of malaria in the ROIs was only available in 2016 for Madagascar and 2018 in Mozambique. After contacting malaria experts, it was found that the malaria survey season for the year of 2022 had been considerably delayed due to cyclones and NGOs' financial recovery from COVID-19. Data were therefore not available at the time of the study (June-August 2022), while it typically tends to be finished by July each year [42]. Further studies should, therefore, aim to make the connection between the vulnerability of coastal communities to cyclones and malaria, as they are exposed to the loss of healthcare infrastructure, reduced access to resources and are more likely to be in the vicinity of stagnant water bodies [43].