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Visibility Correction Factors for Multiple Species of Sea Ducks and Diving Ducks Using an Aerial Remote Sensing Approach

Submitted by tadamson on

Aerial ocular surveys are the most cost- and time-efficient method of evaluating the relative abundance and spatial distributions of breeding, staging, and wintering waterfowl. However, the survey method is subject to substantial visibility bias, and visibility correction factors must be calculated to correct for incomplete detection. Calculation of these factors in remote or hard to access places, such as open water environments, is difficult, but new technologies offer a solution.

Automated Detection of Wildlife Targets in Aerial Imagery

Submitted by tadamson on

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in collaboration with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and Dr. Stella Yu’s research group at the University of Michigan, is advancing the development of machine learning algorithms to detect and classify seabirds, waterfowl, and other marine wildlife from digital aerial imagery.

Aerial Seabird and Marine Mammal Surveys

Submitted by tadamson on

California’s oceanic waters provide habitat for numerous migratory, resident, and breeding species of seabirds and marine mammals. Recent technological advances have made offshore wind energy infrastructure development a possibility for the deep waters off the U.S. West Coast. Multiple wind energy projects have been proposed for the region including two wind energy areas in deep offshore waters off central and northern California.

River Speed from an Airplane: A Case Study along the Tanana River, Alaska

Submitted by tadamson on

Don’t stare—take moving pictures, they will last longer. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is developing a workflow for estimating the speed of the water flowing in a river using imagery acquired from a moving aircraft. Previous studies have, in fact, stared, by mounting cameras on quasi-stationary platforms (drone, helicopter, satellite) that hover in place while acquiring image sequences over rivers. River speed is then estimated using a technique called particle image velocimetry (PIV).

USGS/BLM Film Scanning Collaboration

Submitted by tadamson on

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources and Observation Science (EROS) Center has been transcribing film from analog media to digital form since the photo processing lab was closed in 2004. In 2015, EROS offered this service to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and began scanning their collection of film records. Seven years later, the scanning of all 4,400 rolls of film contained in the BLM archive is nearly complete. Digitization is achieved using the EROS high-resolution photogrammetric scanning systems.

Mapping Barrier Island Habitats for Monitoring and Adaptive Management

Submitted by tadamson on

Barrier islands, headlands, and coastal shorelines provide numerous ecosystem goods and services, including storm protection and erosion control for the mainland, habitat for fish and wildlife, salinity regulation in estuaries, carbon sequestration in marshes, and areas for recreation and tourism. These coastal features are dynamic environments; storms, wave energy, tides, currents, and relative sea-level rise are powerful forces that shape local geomorphology and habitat distribution.

Spectral Remote Sensing of Biocrusts Using Uncrewed Aircraft Systems

Submitted by tadamson on

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are diverse communities of organisms including lichen, moss, and cyanobacteria that live on soil surfaces in dryland environments around the world. Although biocrusts are estimated to make up 12% of the planet’s terrestrial surface and play critical roles in water and carbon cycling, there is great uncertainty related to their distribution, function, and response to change.

Evaluating Distribution and Niche Space of Eastern and Western Joshua Trees

Submitted by tadamson on

Understanding species status and forecasting range shifts for plants and animals requires accurate species distribution information, particularly at the margins of species ranges. However, most distribution studies rely on depauperate species occurrence datasets from herbarium records and public databases, along with statistically derived “pseudoabsences”. True absence data are rarely available. Most distribution analyses rely on statistical species distribution models (SDM).