Rangeland Ecology & Management

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NEW TECHNOLOGY AND FRONTIERS: EFFICIENTLY MEASURING CONSERVATION OUTCOMES THROUGH TIME WITH GOOGLE EARTH ENGINE
Author
Allred, Brady
Naugle, Dave
Donnelly, Patrick
Maestas, Jeremy
Jones, Matthew O.
Silverman, Nicholas L.
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2018
Body

Evaluation of conservation outcomes is hard; relevant field data may be lacking, analysis skills may be absent or outdated, or conservation projects may span a geographical gradient too big to handle. Due to these and many other reasons, conservation outcomes are often pushed aside, ignored, or just impractical to do. Earth observation data�particularly satellite remote sensing�provides a platform to assess broad scale conservation outcomes, but users of such data are often faced with the same challenges of data manipulation or analysis. Emerging cloud based geospatial technologies (e.g., Google Earth Engine), however, eliminate many of the barriers in working with and applying these data to conservation assessments. Furthermore, publicly available web application can be built upon these technologies, providing simple and immediate access to targeting and evaluation tools. The USDA NRCS led Sage Grouse Initiative built an interactive web application to change the paradigm of conservation analysis and evaluation. This online tool allows users to quickly identify and compare areas of concern in order to evaluate potential restoration or threat-prevention opportunities. Built upon Google Earth Engine and the commonly used Google Maps interface, the interactive web application quickly and easily visualizes datasets online; distributes datasets through fast and accessible downloads; and performs on-the-fly custom analyses. The web application allows ranchers, conservationists, and other partners to currently interact with data on encroachment of conifers, resilience and resistance to invasive weeds, conversion risk of native rangeland to cropland, collision risk for sage grouse flying near fences, and changes in mesic habitat over time. Dynamic and interactive applications such as these effectively puts the appropriate data directly into the hands of the people working on the ground, allowing a flexible and landscape-level approach to habitat conservation on western rangelands.

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Conference Name
SRM Reno, NV