Remote Sensing For Biodiversity And Wildlife Management

The Latest Advances in Remote Sensing for Biodiversity This state-of-the-art volume provides fundamental information on and practical applications of remote sensing technologies in wildlife management, habitat studies, and biodiversity assessment and monitoring. The book reviews image analysis, interpretation techniques, and key geospatial tools, including field-based, aerial, and satellite remote sensing, GIS, GPS, and spatial modeling. Remote Sensing for Biodiversity and Wildlife Management emphasizes transdisciplinary collaboration, technological innovations, and new applications in this emerging field. Landmark case studies and illustrative examples of best practices in biodiversity and wildlife management remote sensing at multiple scales are featured in this pioneering work. COVERAGE INCLUDES: Management information requirements Geospatial data collection and processing Thermal, passive and active microwave, and passive and active optical sensing Integrated remote sensing, GIS, GPS, and spatial models Remote sensing of ecosystem process and structure Proven methods for acquiring, interpreting, and analyzing remotely sensed data Habitat suitability and quality analysis Mapping anthropogenic disturbances and modeling species distribution Biodiversity indicators, including species richness mapping and productivity modeling Habitat quality and dynamics Indicators and processes Invasive alien species Species prediction models Food and resources Biodiversity monitoring Fragmentation and spatial heterogeneity

The work of conservation biology has grown from local studies of single species into a discipline concerned with mapping and managing biodiversity on a global scale. Remote sensing, using satellite and aerial imaging to measure and map the environment, increasingly provides a vital tool for effective collection of the information needed to research and set policy for conservation priorities. The perceived complexities of remotely sensed data and analyses have tended to discourage scientists and managers from using this valuable resource. This text focuses on making remote sensing tools accessible to a larger audience of non-specialists, highlighting strengths and limitations while emphasizing the ways that remotely sensed data can be captured and used, especially for evaluating human impacts on ecological systems.

"This sourcebook is intended to assist environmental managers and others who work with indicators in pursuing appropriate methods for indicator testing and production, and to offer some guidance to those responsible for the interpretation of indicators and implementation of decisions based on them. Upon reading this document, technical advisers, environmental policy makers, and remote sensing lab directors and project managers should be able to identify specific, relevant uses of remote sensing data for biodiversity monitoring and indicator development related to the CBD." --p. 8.

The work of conservation biology has grown from local studies of single species into a discipline concerned with mapping and managing biodiversity on a global scale. Remote sensing, using satellite and aerial imaging to measure and map the environment, increasingly provides a vital tool for effective collection of the information needed to research and set policy for conservation priorities. The perceived complexities of remotely sensed data and analyses have tended to discourage scientists and managers from using this valuable resource. This text focuses on making remote sensing tools accessible to a larger audience of non-specialists, highlighting strengths and limitations while emphasizing the ways that remotely sensed data can be captured and used, especially for evaluating human impacts on ecological systems.

The ability to anticipate the impacts of global environmental changes on natural resources is fundamental to designing appropriate and optimised adaptation and mitigation strategies. However, this requires the scientific community to have access to reliable, large-scale information on spatio-temporal changes in the distribution of abiotic conditions and on the distribution, structure, composition, and functioning of ecosystems. Satellite remote sensing can provide access to some of this fundamental data by offering repeatable, standardised, and verifiable information that is directly relevant to the monitoring and management of our natural capital. This book demonstrates how ecological knowledge and satellite-based information can be effectively combined to address a wide array of current natural resource management needs. By focusing on concrete applied examples in both the marine and terrestrial realms, it will help pave the way for developing enhanced levels of collaboration between the ecological and remote sensing communities, as well as shaping their future research directions. Satellite Remote Sensing and the Management of Natural Resources is primarily aimed at ecologists and remote sensing specialists, as well as policy makers and practitioners in the fields of conservation biology, biodiversity monitoring, and natural resource management.

Explains how satellite remote sensing informs and helps deliver successful conservation management through case studies, which highlight practitioner experience.

The book will provide an overview of the practical application of remote sensing for the purposes of nature conservation as developed by ecologists in collaboration with remote sensing specialists, providing guidance on all phases from the planning of remote sensing projects for conservation to the interpretation and validation of the images.

As the impacts of anthropogenic activities increase in both magnitude and extent, biodiversity is coming under increasing pressure. Scientists and policy makers are frequently hampered by a lack of information on biological systems, particularly information relating to long-term trends. Such information is crucial to developing an understanding as to how biodiversity may respond to global environmental change. Knowledge gaps make it very difficult to develop effective policies and legislation to reduce and reverse biodiversity loss. This book explores the gap between global commitments to biodiversity conservation, and local action to track biodiversity change and implement conservation action. High profile international political commitments to improve biodiversity conservation, such as the targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity, require innovative and rapid responses from both science and policy. This multi-disciplinary perspective highlights barriers to conservation and offers novel solutions to evaluating trends in biodiversity at multiple scales.