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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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article

Fires in the Serengeti: Burn Severity & Remote Sensing with Earth Engine

Vance Russell

29 April 2025 6:16pm

Fires in Serengeti and Masai Mara National Parks have burned massive areas this year. With Google Earth Engine, it's possible to quantify burn severity using the normalized burn ratio function, then calculate the total...

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Vance Russell

1 May 2025 11:44am

This was originally presented on 24 April, 2025 as part of a Geospatial Group Cafe. We will post the recording and highlights from other speakers of that session soon!
Elsa Carla De Grandi

10 June 2025 5:39pm

Thanks for presenting this during our Geospatial Cafe! Looks very useful! I wonder if, to get rid or the haze, smoke and clouds you could try using the...
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discussion

From Field to Funder: How to communicate impact?

Léa Smadja

16 April 2025 3:51pm

Conservation involves a mosaic of actors — field practitioners, local communities, funders, government agencies, scientists, and more.Each one needs different levels of...

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Frank van der Most

17 April 2025 5:04pm

Great questions @LeaOpenForests !

I don't have concrete answers since I am not a stakeholder in any project in particular. Based on experience with research on the potential for a similar one-stop-shop for science metrics, I would suggest that there is no simple solution: different actors do need and have different views on presenting and viewing impact. This means possible gaps between what one group of actors need and what the other is willing or able to produce. One can hope, search and aim for sufficient overlap, but I don't see how they would necessarily or naturally overlap.

Still, I would guess that if there are dimensions of overlap, they are time, space and actor-networks 

Amber Balfour-Cunningham

28 April 2025 3:18pm

I have posted about this in a different group, but I love boosting the impact of my communication through use of visuals. 

Free graphics relating to conservation technology and the environment are available at:

  1. National Environmental Science Program Graphics Library

    Graphics below of a feral cat with a tracking collar and a cat grooming trap are examples of symbols available courtesy of the NESP Resilient Landscapes Hub, nesplandscapes.edu.au.

  2. UMCES Integration and Application Network Media Library
Feral cat with tracking collar courtesy of the NESP Resilient Landscapes Hub, nesplandscapes.edu.au

Cat grooming trap graphic courtesy of the NESP Resilient Landscapes Hub, nesplandscapes.edu.au

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event

Geospatial Group Café (April)

Elsa Carla De Grandi and 2 more

15 April 2025 11:38am

Are you ready to dive into the world of geospatial technology for conservation? Join our vibrant community for an exciting virtual event where we explore cutting-edge geospatial datasets, tools and innovative projects....

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Vance Russell

21 April 2025 4:59pm

Hi Folks, Don't forget to register for the Geospatial Cafe!Best,Vance
Elsa Carla De Grandi

23 April 2025 9:17am

Agenda:Vance Russell (3point.xyz)Leanne Tough (Research Officer, Wetland Landscapes and Processes - WWT)Dr Kuria Thiongo (Director, Centre for Spatial...
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article

Application of computer vision for off-highway vehicle route detection: A case study in Mojave desert tortoise habitat

Alexander J Robillard

8 April 2025 2:30pm

Driving off-highway vehicles (OHVs), which contributes to habitat degradation and fragmentation, is a common recreational activity in the United States and other parts of the world, particularly in desert environments...

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Vance Russell

24 April 2025 9:24am

Fantastic and thank you! It will be very interesting to see how these tools can be applied to other species and anthropomorphic features!
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funding

Multiple grants

Frank van der Most

28 March 2025 1:42pm

I have been a bit distracted the past months by my move from Costa Rica to Spain ( all went well, thank you, I just miss the rain forest and the Ticos ) and have to catch up on funding calls. Because I still have little...

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discussion

Nature Tech Unconference - Anyone attending?

Elsa Carla De Grandi

8 March 2025 12:11pm

Hi all, anyone planning to attend the Nature Tech Unconference on 28th March at the London School of Economics Campus in London, UK? (the event is free to attend but...

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Matt Rogers

21 March 2025 12:07pm

The Futures Wild team will be there :)

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discussion

Generative AI for simulating landscapes before and after restoration activities

John Hartshorn

26 March 2025 1:59pm

Hi all.Has anyone come across any generative AI tools that could be trained and used to generate photorealistic landscapes (in a web application) from habitat maps and then re-...

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olivier rovellotti

26 March 2025 7:50pm

Yep we are working on it 

 

1/ segment 

2/remote unwanted ecosytem

3/get local potential habitat

4/generate

5/add to picture 

 

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event

Cloud-Native Geospatial Conference

Earthmover

26 March 2025 3:40pm

CNG Conference is where geospatial data users gather to create the future of our industry together. Learn how experts at NOAA, Planet, the World Bank, and others are using geospatial data and AI to solve some of the...

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discussion

United Nations Open Source Principles

Pen-Yuan Hsing

13 March 2025 4:13pm

FYI, I just came across the United Nations Open Source Principles, which was recently adopted by the UN Chief Executive Board’s Digital Technology Network (DTN): It has been...

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Vance Russell

25 March 2025 11:54am

All sound, would be nice if there were only 5, though!

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discussion

Mole-Rat Mystery. Can anyone help?

Sean Hill

19 March 2025 3:25pm

Good afternoon everyone! I am currently doing a personal study on Cape Dune Mole-Rat (Bathyergus suillus) activity in my free time along an estuary. I do not know...

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Jocelyn Stalker

20 March 2025 4:17pm

Hi Sean! I love that you are naturally curious and are pursuing really cool projects in your free time. I know absolutely nothing about cape dune mole rats (in fact, never heard of them prior to this post, but I will confess I was interested in the concept of a mole-rat mystery), but I did have some thoughts about where you might find more information-

It seems like the types of questions you are asking are pretty specific and niche. My first thought on how to find someone with expertise in these specific rodents was to go to their iNat page- there you can see the top observer and top identifier. Both individuals are active researchers, so I think reaching out to them on iNat or finding their e-mails from their respective organizations' sites might be a good way to get in touch.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1986.tb03570.x

I also did a quick search in Google Scholar in which I typed in only the scientific name and hit go. The two publications linked above caught my eye as potentially helpful in your search- particularly the first one. They excavated burrows and noted things like home range size, that males have more burrows than females, etc. I didn't go much beyond the abstracts but these seem like they might get you on the right tracks!

Happy ratting!

Sean Hill

25 March 2025 8:36am

Good morning Vance

Thank you very much! I am looking into some papers that I was kindly directed to by Jocelyn Stalker ( her comment below) and am looking for ways to establish population dynamics just by looking at the mounds. Once I have figured this part out I should be able to correlate the information to the drone data. The Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) for this project is very small, 1.3cm per pixel. This has proven to be very useful because I am able to use the very fine 3D models to run change detections that pick up new heaps and vegetation reductions (which may be due to feeding) on a weekly basis. It helps not only visualise but also quantify where the most activity has occurred. I will keep you posted!    

Sean Hill

25 March 2025 8:47am

Good morning Jocelyn

Thank you very much for your comment, this is proving to be very useful advice and thank you so much for setting me on the right path!! This is very exciting!!

They are the most extra ordinary little creatures and as I don't know much about them either, I thought I'd try learn as much as I can (not just through literature, but through my own observations as well). I walk past these mounds daily and am always intrigued when I see more mounds and really enjoy watching them actively push the dune sand up to the surface (you don't see the wee fellas but you can watch the sand move as they burrow away). One afternoon while flying my drone (I was quantifying the changes in sediment deposition and erosion volumes in the estuary after a flood that was soon followed by a super high tide), I had a heap between my legs and all of a sardine it starts moving! So that sparked my curiosity even further. 

I will keep you posted on my findings and thank you again for the papers and the direction! It is greatly appreciated!!

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Link

Hansen Global Forest Change Dataset

Vance Russell

11 March 2025 11:12am

The deadtrees.earth dataset that Elsa shared earlier this week is an excellent, albeit grimly named dataset! Here's another for global forest forest change derived from Landsat imagery. Click the link at the bottom to open in the Google Earth Engine Code Editor.

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Read "Hansen Global Forest Change v1.11 (2000-2023) [deprecated]  |  Earth Engine Data Catalog  |  Google for Developers" on Google for Developers

Hansen Global Forest Change v1.11 (2000-2023) [deprecated]  |  Earth Engine Data Catalog  |  Google for Developers

Results from time-series analysis of Landsat images in characterizing global forest extent and change. The 'first' and 'last' bands are reference multispectral imagery from the first and last available years for Landsat spectral bands corresponding to red, NIR, SWIR1, and SWIR2. Reference composite imagery represents median observations from a set …

Google for Developers
discussion

GPS collars for domestic dogs

Stephanie M.

20 January 2025 3:26am

Hi Everyone - I'm quantifying home ranges and contact rates between wildlife, pastoralists, and domestic animals (livestock guardian dogs and livestock) living on shared...

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Constance Woodman

20 February 2025 8:46pm

What are your parameters? Do you need yes no movement, which could be collected with an accelerometer and no lat-long data?

Movement on an XY grid once an hour within a tightly bounded area?

High resolution once per second data? Large geographic area?

Different technologies deliver ddifferent datasets. Sometimes, significantly!

Fadhilla Golda

10 March 2025 11:37am

Hi Stephanie, at https://Savannahtracking.com we develop and manufacture a variety of collars with sizes ranging from about 95 grams for Raptors, 200grams - 1200g for mammals, and collars for large mammals such as Elephants. We currently have collars deployed on Dingoes which are about the same size as domestic dogs, and I believe that a similar solution will be perfect for your needs.
Our GPS collars can be programmed to collect high resolution data (15-minute gps positions) with hourly uploads via iridium satellite to our server where you can view and download the data from our dedicated windows or MAC SDM platforms. We also have a view only android/ios app. All our collars have two-way satellite communication, Internet based downloading via the free accompanying Savannah Tracking data manager software, automated Google Earth links for visualization, fully user definable geo fencing allowing for point, line and polygon fences and automated app and mail alarms in case of zone violation.

Kindly reach out to us and we can discuss a bespoke solution for your tracking needs at info@savannahtracking.com

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