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Geospatial / Feed

Geospatial data and analysis is critical for conservation, from planning to implementation and measuring success. The Geospatial group focuses on all aspects of this field, from field surveys to remote sensing and data development/analysis to GIS systems.

Group curators

Vance Russell
3point.xyz
Over 35 years of experience in biodiversity conservation worldwide, largely focused on forests, rewilding and conservation technology. I run my own business assisting nonprofits and agencies in the conservation community
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event

FOSS4G NA 2025

Alex Rood

22 August 2025 2:18pm

FOSS4G North America is the premier open geospatial technology and business conference with a vibrant and welcoming atmosphere for technologists, end-users, academics, and decision makers.

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careers

Wildland Restoration Tech

Alex Rood

21 August 2025 7:40pm

TreePeople mobilizes individuals, families, communities, philanthropists, and public agencies to work together to create green, resilient communities.

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discussion

Online Ocean-Focused GIS Course

Liz Ferguson

8 August 2025 2:53pm

Hello WILDLABS Community, Ocean Science Analytics recently launched an ocean-focused course for those interested in learning how to use the open access geospatial tool, QGIS!...

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discussion

Anyone using InVEST?

Elsa Carla De Grandi

10 July 2025 1:31pm

InVEST 3.16.0 has been release! with a new Plugin feature. From the InVEST Workbench users can install a 3rd party InVEST-like model which can be...

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Liz Ferguson

8 August 2025 2:23pm

Hi Elsa, 

We have used InVEST for a pollinator project we supported (the crop pollination model - details here), and looking to using it more for marine and coastal applications so really appreciate the details you shared here! 

Cheers, 

Liz

Drea Burbank, MD

20 August 2025 1:27am

We're going to try it for a NatCap assessment this year, but no previous experience with it. 

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Link

QGIS Intro Course

Vance Russell

18 August 2025 8:36am

Hi Folks, Here is a set of introductory tutorials for QGIS, compiled by Statistics Canada. The tutorials are thoughtfully put together and easy to follow—great resource for learning QGIS, a free and open-source geospatial software package available from qgis.org. Best, V

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discussion

Updates on Mole-Rat Mystery Drone Project 

Sean Hill

10 June 2025 10:21am

THE RESULTS ARE IN!! Two months ago I inquired about information on the Cape Dune Mole Rat on Wildlabs (https://wildlabs.net/discussion/mole-rat-mystery-can-anyone-help). Thanks...

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Samantha Moore

14 August 2025 6:07am

want to join 2025 contest for humpback whale photos in Juneo Alaska of Kelp

 

 

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Link

The RCoE Geoportal

Elsa Carla De Grandi

5 August 2025 9:33pm

The RCoE Geoportal provides comprehensive forest datasets that can help governments, researchers, and conservationists make informed decisions. From deforestation trends to forest cover analysis, these datasets offer valuable insights for managing our natural resources.

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Trase and ClientEarth provide guidance on using geospatial data to enforce and comply with the EUDR

Elsa Carla De Grandi

5 August 2025 9:07pm

There are a number of publicly available ‘open’ datasets and products from government sources, research and civil society initiatives, as well as closed offerings from commercial service providers. Find out more if & how these datasets align with EUDR in the report.

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Read "Trase and ClientEarth provide guidance on using geospatial data to enforce and comply with the EUDR - Insights - Trase" on trase.earth

Trase and ClientEarth provide guidance on using geospatial data to enforce and comply with the EUDR - Insights - Trase

Existing publicly available geospatial data can help companies and competent authorities meet the requirements of the EU deforestation regulation, according to a report by Trase commissioned by ClientEarth. But it is important that they are aware of how best to use it.

trase.earth • 17 Jun 2025
discussion

GIS and AI on deforestation and Climate Change

Sebastine Christian

29 July 2025 3:10pm

I'm working on establishing relevant and insightful relationship between deforestation and rainfall amount and durability in North-Eastern part of Nigeria. By leveraging GIS and...

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Alex Rood

29 July 2025 4:02pm

Hi Sebastine! Thanks for sharing this. What are you looking for from the WILDLABS community? (Collaborators, advice, networking, etc.) 

Elsa Carla De Grandi

5 August 2025 7:30pm

Would be interested to learn more! What data, software and tools are you using to build your models?

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discussion

3D Maps for conservation

olivier rovellotti

1 August 2025 2:42pm

Our opensource plateform EcoTeka is now allowing to view trees in 3D.Ecoteka - The Application for Urban Renaturalization — Natural solutionsWe did a prototype for viewing...

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Alex Rood

4 August 2025 6:17pm

Hi Olivier! I'm Alex from the WILDLABS community team. Thank you for sharing EcoTeka! I made a page for it on The Inventory, our wiki-style database of conservation technology tools, R&D projects, and organizations. The Inventory is an essential resource for people in the community to learn about what tools are available for their work.

As an owner of Ecoteka, I encourage you to edit this page to make it as accurate as possible! You can also become a "key contact" for EcoTeka so the WILDLABS community knows who to contact with any questions! To learn more about how to edit a page and become a key contact, read our user guide here. Reach out to myself or @JakeBurton for any troubleshooting needs!

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Link

Google AI model mines trillions of images to create maps of Earth ‘at any place and time’

Ahmed Junaid

2 August 2025 6:21pm

AlphaEarth Foundations

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discussion

Jupyter Notebook: Aquatic Computer Vision

Brett Smith

25 January 2024 5:50am

Dive Into Underwater Computer Vision Exploration OceanLabs Seychelles is excited to share a Jupyter notebook tailored for those intrigued by the...

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Brett Smith

27 January 2024 4:07am

This definitely seems like the community to do it. I was looking at the thread about wolf detection and it seems like people here are no strangers to image classification. A little overwhelming to be quite honest 😂

While it would be incredible to have a powerful model that was capable of auto-classifying everything right away and storing all the detected creatures & correlated sensor data straight into a database - I wonder if in remote cases where power (and therefore cpu bandwidth), data storage, and network connectivity is at a premium if it would be more valuable to just be able to highlight moments of interest for lab analysis later? OR if you do you have cellular connection, you could download just those moments of interest and not hours and hours of footage? 

Arky

27 January 2024 6:11am

Am working on similar AI challenge at the moment. Hoping to translate my workflow to wolves in future if needed. 

We all are little overstretched but it there is no pressing deadlines, it should be possible to explore building efficient model for object detection and looking at suitable hardware for running these model on the edge. 

 

 

Alfred Z. Agarap

28 July 2025 1:20pm

Wow this is amazing! This is how we integrate Biology and Information Technology. 

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discussion

July Geospatial Café Q&A

Elsa Carla De Grandi

25 July 2025 5:53pm

A couple of weeks ago, @ahmedjunaid, @VAR1 and I (with support from @alexrood) hosted the second Geospatial Café and had the pleasure of welcoming speakers who covered topics...

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Elsa Carla De Grandi

25 July 2025 5:57pm

  • I have question. As Dr Muhammad Rais mentioned ArcGis and QGIS for spatial analysis, map creating etc. If we can also done these analysis with python such as spatial analysis etc and sp, sf function in R for spatial analysis. So why everyone recommend ArcGis. And 2nd question about map of life. Can we download data from that for spatial analysis or habitat modeling. 
Elsa Carla De Grandi

25 July 2025 5:58pm

  • Lovely to hear your work curating the Map of life @eliseb227. When uploading shapefiles, is it accurate to create a list of exhaustive species identified within a landscape which could see incidents of conflict. can we include community knowledge in this list?
Vance Russell

28 July 2025 7:43am

Good question. Not sure everyone recommends ArcGIS anymore, but it is commonly used as a desktop GIS. However, it's not free. QGIS, R, and various Python packages are free. But you just need to know how to code to use them. In fact, using R and Python is often cleaner, faster, and puts you in touch with the data and how it's analyzed, much better than the 'clicky clicky' used in desktop packages. Most will use both desktop and code in the workflows. Among others, please see geemap.org, leafmap.org, and FOS geospatial tools for resources to get started and for a deeper dive. Additionally, please see the articles and discussions in this group.

 

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discussion

PACE LAND DATA AND USER GROUP

Vance Russell

8 July 2025 11:06am

The Plankton Aerosol Cloud Ocean Ecosystem Observatory (PACE) has freely available hyperspectral land surface data available on Earth Engine. Add the repo in Earth Engine here and...

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Vance Russell

8 July 2025 11:28am

The  Jupyter notebook on projecting and formatting PACE OCI data is also available here!

Elsa Carla De Grandi

21 July 2025 1:42pm

Very interesting! Thanks for posting this. I found the NASA ARSET Tutorial quite useful for an overview on PACE before delving into the data. Highly recommend it if you're new to hyperspectral and the PACE mission!

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discussion

Geospatial Group Reflections 2024-2025

Vance Russell

18 July 2025 2:53pm

BACKGROUNDAuthors: @VAR1 @elsa @ahmedjunaid Starting in July 2024 and concluding in July 2025, Elsa Carla De Grandi of Fauna & Flora, Ahmed Junaid of SAVE THE FROGS...

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Elsa Carla De Grandi

21 July 2025 1:15pm

Wow great effort everyone! We wouldn't have been able to have such a successful group without all our members and our wonderful speakers @LeanneTough , Dr Kuria Thiongo, @idioguardi98 , @mayanisasi , Dr. Alice Catherine Hughes, Dr. Muhammad Rais, @eliseb227! Thanks for sharing your knowledge :) 

Of course, special thanks to @VAR1 and @ahmedjunaid for being great co-leads for the past year! And to @alexrood for running the Group Leadership Programme! I am excited for what's ahead in the Geospatial group!

I would also love to hear any feedback :) and if you have found that any of our discussions & contributions have helped you with your work or simply inspired you let us know.

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careers

Water Quality Remote Sensing Lead

Alex Rood

10 July 2025 7:40pm

Are you interested in building one of the world’s first reliable satellite imagery models for water quality prediction? Are you a machine learning or remote sensing engineer who loves applying hard technical skills to...

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