Conservation Remote Sensing Now and in the Future

Conservation Remote Sensing
Now and in the Future
Robert A Rose
and lots of others people

Main Goals of Talk
• Overview of the current state of RS at a large NGO
o
o
Assortment of applications
Successes and challenges ahead
• Reflect on the future RS needs of conservation
organizations
o
o
Near future look
Data and applications
• Discuss efforts to revitalize a Conservation Remote
Sensing Work Group
• Open discussion

RS Work at a
Conservation NGO
• Long history of great RS research focused on conservation
o
Has not necessarily trickled down to the practice of conservation
• Basic applications
o
o
o
o
LULCC
Some modeling work
Habitat suitability models
others
• No broad capacity for remote sensing
o
o
Have done a good job developing GIS capacity (almost 200 people using
ArcGIS)
Fallen behind in RS capacity (about 10 using any RS tools)
• Hard to dedicate research to RS applications
o
o
Lack of time
Lack of funds
• Our questions focus on conservation outcomes not RS technologies and
methods

Applications
• How does deforestation is affecting downstream
coastal ecosystems This study will explore whether
remote sensing imagery can be used to identify
and quantify if/how upstream deforestation
impacts down-stream water quality and, ultimately,
coastal ecosystems.
• Use NDVI data to document, over a long time series
(1980s-2010s), the intra-and inter-annual patterns of
pasture productivity across the steppe, and to
explore whether or not observed patterns are
influenced by global climate drivers such as the El
Niño-Southern Oscillation.

Applications
• How does future ex-urban impact critical wildlife
habitat but there are numerous directions the
research could follow.

Capacity
• Great job developing GIS capacity
o Many on-line education tools and resources
o On-line Introduction to Conservation GIS
o Instructor led training
o Almost 200 GIS licenses across our global programs
• Have not focused much attention on RS capacity
o Little to no opportunities for training of field staff
o Hoping to develop on-line Introduction to RS
o Have less than 10 RS specialists

Challenges
• Data
o
Dependent on free or low cost data
• Landsat TM and ETM
o If we do budget for data we have 5, 000 – 10,000
o
o
o
Lack of availability in remote areas
• From ground truth to high resolution imagery
Clouds
Opportunities such as Planet Action have helped
• Lack of capacity
o
o
o
• Funds
o
o
We can get decent land cover maps done
Don’t have experts that can bring in advanced techniques - LIDAR
Don’t have time to develop advanced techniques as we tend to react to
critical problems quickly
Hard to raise funds for technology in conservation
Can’t dedicate the resources to RS applications

Moving Forward
• Data
o
o
o
Looking forward to next Landsat mission
Better access to low cost medium and high resolution imagery
Products, not just raw data
• Applications
o
o
o
o
o
Need to develop conservation specific applications
Rapid and repeatable land cover monitoring – measuring effectiveness
Better predictive models
Carbon monitoring
Degradation
• Capacity
o
o
Need to develop capacity for basic RS
Hope to develop on-line course
• Better communications with RS researchers in
government, private and academic institutions

CRS Working Group
• Panel discussion at last year’s NASA Biodiversity and
Ecological Forecasting Team meeting
o
o
Focused on the lack of communication and collaboration opportunities
between scientists, academics and NGOs.
Disjuncture between the innovative remote sensing research conducted
by NASA and university scientists, and the applied remote sensing work
needed by NGOs to solve critical challenges to sustainable environmental
management.
• Reviving and reinvigorating this multi-organizational
working group
o
o
greater communication amongst remote sensing scientists and
practitioners
create a critical link between the novel and visionary work of remote
sensing scientists and on-the-ground conservation projects.

CRS Working Group
• Foster better communication among groups,
thereby positioning researchers to benefit from
NGOs’ wealth of field knowledge and data
o
Land cover, wildlife, socio-economic data
• Provide opportunities for NGOs to work with
scientists to secure support for collaborative,
conservation-relevant projects
• If successful, will significantly address challenges
conservation NGOs face

Upcoming Workshop
• NASA funded Workshop – early 2013
• Bring together 30 people
o
Government agencies, academic institutions, conservation NGOs
• Develop list of 10 Ten Conservation Questions that
can be answered using RS technologies
• Foster discussions across different institutions
• Publish results - map for moving conservation RS
forward
o
o
Focus of research and funding for next several years
Will directly impact the practice of conservation
• Discussions on formal Conservation Remote Sensing
Community
• We hope this will be a beginning for future efforts

Discussion
• Is there value in developing conservation specific
applications
o
Partnerships to develop these
• Would better communications/collaborations
among groups be a benefit
• Do you see a need or an important role for a
Conservation Remote Sensing Organization
• Other points