GIS, or Geographic Information Systems, play a crucial role in nature conservation. Every day, mapping and spatial analysis are aiding conservation decisions, protected areas designation, habitat management on reserves and monitoring of wildlife populations, to name but a few examples. Want to learn more about how remote sensing is used in conservation? Check out the first two episodes of this season of Tech Tutors, where our Tutors answer the questions How do I use open source remote sensing data to monitor fishing? and How do I access and visualise open source remote sensing data in Google Earth Engine?
You can also check out our Virtual Meetup Archive for a range of panels that overlap with Remote Sensing & GIS topics.
- @catwasp
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Aeracoop & Dronecoria
Computer engineer, Drone Pilot, Seed researcher
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GIS & Remote sensing technical specialist at Fauna & Flora
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- @Durgananda
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Technical Specialist at FFI: loves data management, maps, remote sensing & GIS for conservation
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- @rowan
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Octophin Digital
Jack of all Trades. I've been a zoo keeper, a conservation geneticist and a web developer who specialises in conservation projects and orgs.
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- 15 Groups
- @thomasmutonhori
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Ecologist
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Fauna & Flora
Remote Sensing Scientist
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- @Naomi25
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Naomi Mkama Njarabi, a Tanzanian conservation ecologist and nature enthusiast, is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Biodiversity Conservation at the University of Dar es Salaam, following her completion of a Bachelor's degree in Wildlife Management
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Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) & International Fund for Houbara Conservation (IFHC)
22 July 2022
Article
Ceres Tag sends just in time alerts and GPS location to have the power to track and trace.
22 July 2022
Careers
Giraffe Conservation Foundation has now opened this opportunity to qualified candidates willing to work remotely. The position is desktop-based and the successful candidate can work from anywhere in the world to provide...
15 July 2022
In this role, you will serve as the main data liaison for the USAID Forest Data Partnership project, integrating with Global Forest Watch and Land & Carbon Lab research teams.
14 July 2022
Careers
Love design, passionate about conversation? Want to make sure that technologies that are being developed actually meet the needs of the people who use them? Come and work for us!
13 July 2022
WHOI is establishing an Imaging Technology Laboratory (ITL) & seeks a senior technical leader to lead the initiative. The primary goal of the ITL is to create a center of excellence to serve the technical imaging...
11 July 2022
The NCEAS invites applications for a temporary Data Fellow to engage in data science projects relating to environmental science in deserts of California. These projects will include assisting in the organization &...
9 July 2022
Professor Nathalie Seddon, Professor Yadvinder Malhi (University of Oxford)
30 June 2022
Applications are invited for a Research Associate to join Dr Emily Lines' UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) project "Next generation forest dynamics modelling using remote sensing data" (University of Cambridge)....
30 June 2022
Careers
Tammy Robinson-Smythe, Stellenbosch University
30 June 2022
Applications are invited for a Research Associate to join Dr Emily Lines' UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) project "Next generation forest dynamics modelling using remote sensing data". This is an interdisciplinary...
15 June 2022
This study presents a comprehensive comparison of point clouds from four systems, linear and Geiger-mode LiDAR from manned aircraft and multi-beam LiDAR on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), and in-house developed Backpack...
13 June 2022
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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The Cambridge Conservation Forum's Conservation GIS group had returned! If you're based in or around Cambridge, and are... |
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Remote Sensing & GIS | 7 years 2 months ago | |
The first bi-monthly Conservation GIS social of 2017 will be at The Eagle on Benet Street from 18:00 on Thursday 9th March. This informal... |
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Remote Sensing & GIS | 7 years 3 months ago | |
I'm a software developer with the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), working on online map-based applications for bird surveys (e.g. BirdTrack). My main focus is the... |
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Remote Sensing & GIS | 7 years 5 months ago | |
Hey MGatta, I'm working with adehabitatLt as well, i have a good paper on spatial referencing your data and changing your coordinates to UTM, if you want it (by C.J.... |
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Remote Sensing & GIS | 7 years 6 months ago | |
Hello all, I came across this website featuring free vector and raster datasets. Feel free to use it! |
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Remote Sensing & GIS | 7 years 7 months ago | |
Now the course is officially over, I wonder how people found it? Too difficult, too easy or just right? |
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Remote Sensing & GIS | 7 years 7 months ago | |
I'm not affiliated with Google or this event, but I thought it would be of interest to the community. I have previously attended and it... |
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Remote Sensing & GIS | 7 years 11 months ago | |
Things just got a whole lot easier for those of us at universities who train students to use drones as tools for conservation. Many... |
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Remote Sensing & GIS | 8 years 1 month ago | |
Another option is OruxMaps, free for android, not very intuitive but very powerful. But it's important to bear in mind that phone GPS accuracy can be lower than... |
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Remote Sensing & GIS | 8 years 1 month ago | |
ZSL is holding a remote sensing symposium on the 29th April, 2016: Space - the final frontier for biodiversity monitoring?... |
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Remote Sensing & GIS | 8 years 1 month ago | |
Hello all, This blog immediately make me think of our community and the possibilities for one of our members to provide a solution.... |
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Remote Sensing & GIS | 8 years 2 months ago | |
Thank you. I am doing pre reading and Information gathering, so I'll know what to expect and be prepared. Thank you for your kind answer Stephanie. |
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Remote Sensing & GIS | 8 years 2 months ago |
Due diligence for Nature Based Solutions
5 April 2023 3:38pm
How do I extract spatial data from EarthRanger to create maps on QGIS & ArcGIS Pro?
3 April 2023 12:35pm
Remote Sensing Technology for Improved Forest Carbon Inventorying
27 March 2023 11:58am
Exploring storage options for mass data collection
22 March 2023 3:20am
27 March 2023 5:23am
Meeting customer deadlines, without having to hire more staff
24 March 2023 4:02pm
Python for Geographers (video)
21 March 2023 4:56pm
ARSET - Fundamentals of Machine Learning for Earth Science
21 March 2023 4:49pm
Monitoring airborne biomass
14 March 2023 10:30am
14 March 2023 1:34pm
Looks like you want to have a read of this thread:
Project introductions and updates | WILDLABS
Tell us about your project!If you are just starting out with autonomous camera traps for insects, or if you are a seasoned expert, this is the place to share your projects with the rest of the community. Tell us what your project is aiming to achieveWhere is it based and who is involved?If you are looking for advise or feedback be sure to make it clear what you would like to knowPlease come back once you have some results to share your successes and challenges!
wildlabsnet20 March 2023 2:44pm
Our project in very short is, setting up a sensor network for monitoring airborne biomass, mainly insects, birds and bats in near realtime, and to develop a forecast model to be used for mitigation with respect various types of human-wildlife conflicts (e.g. wind power, pesticide application, aviation). Our expertise is mainly in radar monitoring, but we aim on add insect camera information to be merged with the quantitative biomass measeurments by radar.
Google Earth Engine vs Microsoft's Planetary Computer: Which do I use?
3 March 2023 11:38am
12 March 2023 3:21pm
Dear @Frank_van_der_Most and @StephODonnell , thanks for the comments. Regarding the importance of local knowledge in EO data classification, some thoughts follow:
1. Consider two AI applications: large language models (LLM) and object recognition in images. LLMs such as ChatGPT use words to predict the next word. Since language is its own meta-language, LLMs rely on the fact that our understanding of written text is direct. There are no intermediaries between humans and the printed page.
2. Object recognition in images (e.g., face recognition) is another kind of AI application where there is an implicit assumption: there are objects (faces, cars, etc) in the image and the role of the algorithm is to distinguish them from the background (considered as unwanted noise).
3. Classification and interpretation of Earth observation data, by contrast, uses a different paradigm. In principle, all of the data is informative. Unlike face recognition, there is no background. Every pixel counts. Pixel values are not words, but measures of reflections, emissions or echoes of the Earth's surface.
4. We use words to describe the reality external to us. The variety of nature is such that we have to use simplifications and taxonomies to describe our landscapes. Take the word "forest". As Chazdon et al. question in their 2016 paper, "when is a forest a forest?" The answer is: it depends on who is asking the question.
5. There have been many attempts to join pixel values with landscape descriptions. e.g, "pixels with NDVI > 0.75 are forests". Do they? What about dry forests that only have high NDVI values in the wet season? So far, all attempts to use direct links between pixel values and landscapes have failed the test of rigour.
6. Another example is the algorithm used by Global Forest Watch to measure tree cover gain and loss. As explained in the link below, "Not all tree cover is a forest". As GFW acknowledges, their algorithm has problems distinguishing forest from oil-palm plantation and to identify trees in dry forests (see more at https://research.wri.org/gfr/data-methods?utm_campaign=treecoverloss2021&Limitations#limitations).
7. Some of you may know the attempt made by FAO to standardize land use and land cover classification using the LCCS ontology. LCCS describes land properties based only on land cover types, disregarding land use. For example, LCCS does not distinguish ‘pasture’ from ‘natural grasslands’; it labels both as herbaceous land cover types. Classification in LCCS has no temporal reference. For a more detailed criticism, see Camara (2020).
8. There is no shortage of global land cover and land use maps. While these maps provide a general sense of the global picture, very few (if any) have local significance. As those in the WILDLABS community know, local context matters. My favourite example is the Brazilian Cerrado, an endangered biodiversity hotspot. In the last decades, many areas of natural vegetation in the Cerrado have been converted to pasture for cattle raising. However, global maps inevitably label both pastures and natural Cerrado vegetation as "grasslands". Clearly, such data is hardly usable for supporting studies and public policies in the Cerrado.
9. What is the alternative for mapping areas such as the Cerrado? The only way I see is gathering experts who understand the uniqueness of each ecosystem and try to relate each landscape to signals measured by EO satellites. This is hard and painstaking work, which many iterations.
10. The recent availability of open big EO data is a blessing and a curse. Using time series, experts can use the temporal evolution of the pixel values to improve the discriminatory power of EO data. Take the distinction between herbaceous pasture and natural Cerrado vegetation. All savannas of the planet (including the Cerrado) have evolved to be resilient to the dry season and to fire. Therefore, while in the wet season it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between herbaceous pasture and natural Cerrado, such distinction increases in the dry season. This is a case of where time series and big data improve the classification results.
11. Big EO data is also a curse, since it requires experts to rethink how to use EO data for land classification. Selecting training samples by looking at a single image is too simplistic when we are classifying time series. Linking the values of a time series to the temporal evolution of the landscapes requires relearning what EO data is.
Long story short: using Earth observation for conservation studies and public policy making is hard. It requires the combination of big EO data, good algorithms, and lots of expertise to understand the information inherent in the data. A nice challenge to all!
References cited:
Chazdon et al., "When is a forest a forest? Forest concepts and definitions in the era of forest and landscape restoration". Ambio, 45, p 538–550 (2016).
Camara, "On the semantics of big Earth observation data for land classification". Journal of Spatial Information Science, 20 (2020).
17 March 2023 9:33am
18 March 2023 12:48am
Dear @gcamara , thank you so much for your elaborate reply. I am afraid, I am still overlooking something. Do I understand correctly, that the relationship between EO and local expertise is that one needs the local expertise to inform the interpretation of the EO data? But then every area that is different from its neighbors ( easier said than established ) needs a representative. That means that one needs a huge number of representatives to cover the entire earth. If that is organized, then the knowledge is collected through these people. How are the images then still useful? For the precision and the quantification?
GIS for a Sustainable World
16 March 2023 4:28pm
Proposals wanted for Innovation in Practice
6 March 2023 10:34pm
How do I get started with Landsat for Land use and Land cover mapping?
6 March 2023 10:15am
The WILDLABS Variety Hour: February 2023 - YouTube
3 March 2023 11:24am
Last week's Variety Hour is now up on youtube. It was a great session - we covered Moveapps, an awesome community project building marine biologgers, chatgpt and google earth engine vs microsoft's planetary computer. Thanks everyone who came along!
Satellite Remote Sensing Solutions and Challenges
1 March 2023 11:53pm
Drones for GIS - Best Practice
17 October 2017 8:22am
31 March 2020 10:38am
We've just created a new version. General updates throughout
version notes
General refresh and update based on knowledge acquired over the last couple of years
Checked links
Updated CAA regulations, drone model advice including Yuneec, sensor advice (including thermal), classification advice, hydrological modelling advice, and nest survey info
15 February 2023 9:39am
This thread continues to be one of the most useful, evergreen resources - even 5+ years later! Who would have thought?
I was speaking to a colleague from another conservation ngo last week - and it came out that she was having to start from scratch developing some consistent internal guidance to support staff members using drones. I've poiinted her here and it's already been super useful, but I'm curious if anyone has newer guidance they've developed to support drone use their organisation that they'd be able to share? If you've updated your guidance, what have you changed or found to be most important?
Reinvigorating this thread might turn out to be super useful for lots of folk and save a lot of time in developing supporting documentation - I appreciate anyone who is able to share!
Thanks
Steph
24 February 2023 12:30pm
Hi all,
I've been quickly developing in-house drone services in the UK for Providence Ecological and have found some useful information for building a workflow with Rich Charpentier's YouTube channel. There are loads of good resources on YouTube but Rich's channel seems to be more useful with regard to budget/free software etc.
It has occurred to me that there may not be very good "Best Practice" guidance for drone pilots with regard to wildlife disturbance so when considering employing a drone pilot, please bear this in mind. It is useful to talk through their experience of avoiding/mitigating disturbance to wildlife during drone operations asnd provide guidance where you feel it is required.
Hopefully this is helpful!
Mobilising East African nature restoration professionals
21 February 2023 3:57pm
Texas Chapter of The Wildlife Society’s Annual Meeting 2023
20 February 2023 10:56pm
Download Now: A Best Practice Guide to Satellite Technologies for Tracking Wildlife
17 February 2023 10:29am
17 February 2023 11:34am
20 February 2023 9:34am
Catch up with The Variety Hour: February 2023
14 February 2023 6:26pm
AniMove 2022 Course Lectures Available to Stream
10 February 2023 1:27pm
Recommendations about online courses on GPS wildlife tracking?
8 February 2023 11:28am
8 February 2023 2:39pm
Hi Silvesru,
We're hosting a tutorial tomorrow about how to use GPS satellite tages to monitor giraffe - this could be a good starting point! If you check out our youtube channel we have a lot of other talks about selecting and using tags on different species. See the links below
Steph
10 February 2023 12:13pm
Animove is running a course this summer (costs) though also has free online materials (lots of videos, linked below). Requires advanced R-coding skills to start with, if that suits you.
https://streaming.uni-konstanz.de/talks-und-events/2022/animove-2022/
10 February 2023 1:12pm
Oh good call! I'll add that to our events calendar as well :)
How to conduct rapid eligibility assessments for forest carbon projects using geospatial data
3 February 2023 3:32pm
Consultancy opportunity: Wildlife monitoring specialist
31 January 2023 11:26am
Gender Equality in Conservation
30 January 2023 10:27am
International Congress for Conservation Biology
16 January 2023 2:53pm
Global Fishing Watch's Marine Manager Raises the Bar on Ocean Monitoring
13 January 2023 12:09am
An online portal to help governments, researchers, conservation advocates & others monitor activity throughout the world’s marine environment, as well as design & implement protected areas. The Marine Manager is now open to anyone. Marine Manager provides users with a trove of human activity and environmental insights.
New Paper - Evaluation of thermal imaging as a tool for assessing occupancy of enclosed nests
13 January 2023 12:06am
The authors "tested the use of a thermal imager to assess the occupancy of enclosed nests, using nest-box populations of small passerines. Based on a thermal image of each nest box, observers were able to predict nest-box occupancy with a combined success rate of 85.9%."
Conservation Technology Intern (Vietnam)
11 January 2023 5:00pm
Help : Topics in Remote Sensing and Management of Protected Areas
10 January 2023 11:04am
22 March 2023 7:36pm
Hi Adam!
I mostly live within the ecoacoustics space so I'll just speak on the hydrophone part of your request; Arbimon is a free web/cloud-based platform with unlimited storage for audio files. We've got an uploader app as well for mass-uploading lots of files. There's also a bunch of spectrogram visualization/annotation tools and analysis workflows available. It's AWS running under the hood.
I have some experience working directly with AWS & Microsoft Azure, and I've found personally that AWS was more user-friendly and intuitive for the (fairly simplistic) kinds of tasks I've done.