Preventing biodiversity loss and preserving ecosystem functioning on Earth is one of the grand challenges facing humankind. Advances in GIS and earth observation technologies give us the tools to develop robust forecasting models to understand how climate change will impact biodiversity and land uses so that appropriate conservation actions can be planned and implemented. However, while remote sensing and other environmental data streams are accumulating rapidly, their broad scope generates major challenges for developing effective ways to discover, integrate, curate, and analyze the spectrum of relevant information in a way that is accessible and usable for conservation decision makers.
This Article Collection seeks contributions that use GIS and remote sensing for conservation science and address questions such as: how can we leverage the new wave of remote sensing datasets that are sensitive to vegetation structure and ecosystem functioning (e.g., GEDI, Planet, NEON) for conservation? How can we improve understanding of the environmental drivers of biodiversity loss through high spatial and temporal resolution earth observation data? How can we use GIS and remote sensing to optimize future land use planning and nature-based solutions for conservation? What are the next generation geospatial machine learning and artificial intelligence (GeoAI) algorithms needed to extract key conservation information from environmental data and use it for decision making? How can we utilize GIS and remote sensing technologies to better understand the climate extremes and other transformative events that are driving ecosystem service declines?
With these challenges in mind, this Article Collection calls for papers that develop and apply new and emerging methods, analytical frameworks, and applications for conservation science as well as reviews in topics such as:
- Remote sensing of ecosystem structure and function
- Land use and land cover change impacts on biodiversity
- Spatial land use planning for current and future conservation needs
- Integrating climate and environmental data for biodiversity forecasting
- Geospatial tools to improve decision making capacity for conservation organizations
- Supporting nature-based conservation solutions with GIS and remote sensing
Guest Advisor Biography
Amy Frazier is an Associate Professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. Her research program sits at the nexus between GIScience, remote sensing, and landscape ecology to investigate how the scales at which we observe ecological phenomena influence our understanding of conservation and global environmental change. She is a core faculty member in the Spatial Analysis Research Center (SPARC) and the Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science at ASU and serves as the Associate Director for Geospatial Research and Solutions. Dr. Frazier has authored more than 65 articles in international scientific journals and serves on the Editorial Board for Landscape Ecology and the International Advisory Board for Ecological Indicators.
