Quantification of Migration Birds Based on Polarimetric Weather Radar

Abstract

Weather radar plays an important role in monitoring aerial animal migration, providing a stable data source for biological studies with large-scale coverage and consecutive-time samples. The accurate estimation of bird density from weather radar echoes is fundamental for quantitative biological studies. We analyzed the bird observation model in weather radar, and proposed a method to build the bird quantification model by jointly utilizing dual-polarization Doppler weather radar and scanning bird radar. We designed a detailed process to remove tracks or echoes from non-bird targets, ensuring the effectiveness of bird observations. The field experiments validated the quantification method, showing that the average radar cross section of birds in Jinan was 19.09 dBscm (i.e., 81.19 cm2; 95% confidence interval, CI: 18.92–19.27 dBscm) for the S-band weather radar, with an R2 of 0.79. In addition, through the correlation analysis, we found that the ground terrain may affect the distribution pattern of aerial bird density.