Free and open-access satellite data are key to biodiversity conservation

Turner, Woody; Rondinini, Carlo; Pettorelli, Nathalie; Mora, B.; Leidner, Allison K.; Szantoi, Zoltan; Buchanan, Graeme M.; Dech, Stefan; Dwyer, John L.; Herold, Martin; Koh, Lian Pin; Leimgruber, Peter; Taubenböck, Hannes; Wegmann, Martin; Wikelski, Martin; Woodcock, Curtis E.

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2014.11.048

Cited by 316 publications

(200 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…For our study, this required sampling 6 years with >150 images over a 20-year time frame, which would not have been possible without free, high-quality medium-resolution image data. Ongoing Landsat and Sentinel missions extend the archive of freely-available, mediumresolution, full-range optical data (Turner et al, 2015), which will be invaluable to support microrefugia detection and many other applications of Earth observation data to conservation and environmental management. Although the Landat TM, Landsat-8 OLI, and Sentinel-2 sensors sample slightly different wavelength bands, with careful calibration and co-registration of images, it should be possible to detect microrefugia with time series of multi-sensor data, expanding the temporal extent of similar analyses, and enabling them into the future.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting microrefugia in semi-arid landscapes from remotely sensed vegetation dynamics

Andrew

Warrener

2017

Remote Sensing of Environment

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(in press). Detecting microrefugia in semi-arid landscapes from remotely sensed vegetation dynamics. Remote Sensing of Environment. Accepted 4 August 2017. DOI:https: //doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2017.08.005 Disclaimer:The PDF document is a copy of the final version of this manuscript that was subsequently accepted by the journal for publication. The paper has been through peer review, but it has not been subject to any additional copy-editing or journal specific formatting (so will look different from the final version of record, which may be accessed following the DOI above depending on your access situation). 2 AbstractMicrorefugia are sites with stable, high quality habitat within landscapes characterized by dynamic environmental conditions driven by climate variability or ecological disturbances. There is considerable interest in the potential of microrefugia to provide climate change resilience to landscapes and to biodiversity conservation. Although attractive conceptually, there is yet little guidance on how to identify climate change microrefugia in order to study and protect them, and the data required to do so are often lacking. This study demonstrates how time series remote sensing, using all available Landsat images of a study area, can be used to directly detect microrefugia maintained by water subsidies in a semi-arid landscape in southwest Western Australia.Microrefugia were identified as pixels with abundant vegetation and consistent vegetation dynamics between wet and dry years. At every pixel, a harmonic model was fit to the intra-annual time series of vegetation index values compiled from the wettest years in the Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) archive. This model was then used to predict the phenological cycle of the driest years at that pixel. Candidate microrefugia were defined to be those pixels with (1) high vegetation activity in dry years and (2) highly predictable phenologies that are consistent regardless of the weather conditions experienced in a given year. Spatial relationships between candidate microrefugia and landscape features associated with elevated moisture availability (thought to drive climate microrefugia in these semi-arid landscapes) were assessed. The candidate microrefugia show great promise. Evaluations against high-resolution imagery reveal that candidate microrefugia most likely buffer against drought, although refugia from other disturbances, especially fire, were also detected. In contrast, spatial proxies of the physical features expected to maintain microrefugia failed to adequately represent the distribution of microrefugia across the landscape, likely due to data quality and the heterogeneity of microrefugia. Direct detection of microrefugia with Earth observation data is a promising solution in data limited regions. Landsat time series analyses are well suited to this application as they can characterize both the habitat quality and stability aspects of microrefugia.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting microrefugia in semi-arid landscapes from remotely sensed vegetation dynamics

Andrew

Warrener

2017

Remote Sensing of Environment

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“…Costello et al, 2013aCostello et al, , 2014Dicks et al, 2014;Turner et al, 2015;Wetzel et al, 2015;Stephenson et al, in press Metrics of use collated and reported (3.7) Technologies used regularly to obtain and integrate user feedback, ensuring an iterative approach to development. Regular reports produced to provide internal and external feedback on progress toward targets set out by the knowledge product's business plan.…”

Section: Undp 2009; Mcinerny Et Al 2014mentioning

confidence: 99%

Blueprints of Effective Biodiversity and Conservation Knowledge Products That Support Marine Policy

et al. 2017

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Biodiversity and conservation data are generally costly to collect, particularly in the marine realm. Hence, data collected for a given-often scientific-purpose are occasionally contributed toward secondary needs, such as policy implementation or other types of decision-making. However, while the quality and accessibility of marine biodiversity and conservation data have improved over the past decade, the ways in which these data can be used to develop and implement relevant management and conservation measures and actions are not always explicit. For this reason, there are a number of scientifically-sound datasets that are not used systematically to inform policy and decisions. Transforming these marine biodiversity and conservation datasets into knowledge products that convey the information required by policy-and decision-makers is an important step in strengthening knowledge exchange across the science-policy interface. Here, we identify seven characteristics of a selection of online biodiversity and conservation knowledge products that contribute to their ability to support policy-and decision-making in the marine realm (as measured by e.g., mentions in policy resolutions/decisions, or use for reporting under selected policy instruments; use in high-level screening for areas of biodiversity importance). These characteristics include: a clear policy mandate; established networks of collaborators; iterative co-design of a user-friendly interface; standardized, comprehensive and documented methods with quality assurance; consistent capacity and succession planning; accessible data and value-added products that are fit-for-purpose; and metrics of use collated and reported. The outcomes of this review are intended to: (a) support data creators/owners/providers in designing and curating biodiversity and conservation knowledge products that have Weatherdon et al.Blueprints of Effective Knowledge Products greater influence, and hence impact, in policy-and decision-making, and (b) provide recommendations for how decision-and policy-makers can support the development, implementation, and sustainability of robust biodiversity and conservation knowledge products through the framing of marine policy and decision-making frameworks.

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“…Mapping land cover and monitoring land cover change are important for a variety of societal and scientific purposes, including land management, natural resource management, ecological studies, sustainable development, climate modeling, urban planning, habitat monitoring, and many others [1][2][3][4][5]. The U.S Geological Survey (USGS) is moving forward with a Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) initiative to develop an expanded operational capacity for land cover mapping and monitoring to support these needs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of the Initial Thematic Output from a Continuous Change-Detection Algorithm for Use in Automated Operational Land-Change Mapping by the U.S. Geological Survey

et al. 2016

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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has begun the development of operational, 30-m resolution annual thematic land cover data to meet the needs of a variety of land cover data users. The Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC) algorithm is being evaluated as the likely methodology following early trials. Data for training and testing of CCDC thematic maps have been provided by the USGS Land Cover Trends (LC Trends) project, which offers sample-based, manually classified thematic land cover data at 2755 probabilistically located sample blocks across the conterminous United States. These samples represent a high quality, well distributed source of data to train the Random Forest classifier invoked by CCDC. We evaluated the suitability of LC Trends data to train the classifier by assessing the agreement of annual land cover maps output from CCDC with output from the LC Trends project within 14 Landsat path/row locations across the conterminous United States. We used a small subset of circa 2000 data from the LC Trends project to train the classifier, reserving the remaining Trends data from 2000, and incorporating LC Trends data from 1992, to evaluate measures of agreement across time, space, and thematic classes, and to characterize disagreement. Overall agreement ranged from 75% to 98% across the path/rows, and results were largely consistent across time. Land cover types that were well represented in the training data tended to have higher rates of agreement between LC Trends and CCDC outputs. Characteristics of disagreement are being used to improve the use of LC Trends data as a continued source of training information for operational production of annual land cover maps.

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Free and open-access satellite data are key to biodiversity conservation

Cited by 316 publications

References 21 publications

Detecting microrefugia in semi-arid landscapes from remotely sensed vegetation dynamics

Detecting microrefugia in semi-arid landscapes from remotely sensed vegetation dynamics

Blueprints of Effective Biodiversity and Conservation Knowledge Products That Support Marine Policy

Evaluation of the Initial Thematic Output from a Continuous Change-Detection Algorithm for Use in Automated Operational Land-Change Mapping by the U.S. Geological Survey

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