The Roles Of Remote Sensing In Nature Conservation

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.

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 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.

Remote Sensing plays a key role in monitoring the various manifestations of global climate change. It is used routinely in the assessment and mapping of biodiversity over large areas, in the monitoring of changes to the physical environment, in assessing threats to various components of natural systems, and in the identification of priority areas for conservation. This book presents the fundamentals of remote sensing technology, but rather than containing lengthy explanations of sensor specifications and operation, it concentrates instead on the application of the technology to key environmental systems. Each system forms the basis of a separate chapter, and each is illustrated by real world case studies and examples. Readership The book is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in earth science, environmental science, or physical geography taking a course in environmental remote sensing. It will also be an invaluable reference for environmental scientists and managers who require an overview of the use of remote sensing in monitoring and mapping environmental change at regional and global scales. Additional resources for this book can be found at: http://www.wiley.com/go/purkis/remote.

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

Remote sensing has been successfully applied in monitoring of protected areas around the world. With intensified impacts of climate and environmental change, protected areas become increasingly important to serve as indicators of and buffers against the impacts of the disturbances. Remote sensing plays an irreplaceable role in this frontline of challenges. The subjects and contents of the articles collected in this book reflect the state-of-the-art applications of remote sensing for capturing dynamics of environmental and ecological variations of the protected areas. The examples include revealing the level, growth rate, trend, and distribution pattern of the night-time light of global protected areas; quantifying the energy budget, water cycle, and carbon sink over the Three-River Headwaters Region in the hinterland of the Tibetan Plateau; monitoring wetland change in a cross-boundary zone between Northeast China and the Russian Far East; and monitoring applications and change analyses in protected areas of boreal forests, dryland shrubs, coastal salt marshes, large lakes, and temperate semi-humid to semi-arid transitional agricultural regions, using a variety of sensor data with innovative approaches. Also included in this collection is a bibliometric analysis that suggests the intellectual structure in remote sensing of protected areas from the perspective of journal publications.

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.

The Cambrian radiation was the explosive evolution of marine life that started 550,000,000 years ago. It ranks as one of the most important episodes in Earth history. This key event in the history of life on our planet changed the marine biosphere and its sedimentary environment forever, requiring a complex interplay of wide-ranging biologic and nonbiologic processes. The Ecology of the Cambrian Radiation offers a comprehensive and surprising picture of the Earth at that ancient time. The book contains contributions from thirty-three authors hailing from ten countries and will be of interest to paleontologists, geologists, biologists, and other researchers interested in the global Earth-life system.