Tools for Promoting Remote Sensing to Conservation Practitioners

摘要

Remote sensing has emerged as an important and powerful tool to apply to conservation biology issues. As access to remotely sensed data as well as free software increases, a unique opportunity has arisen to promote the use of remote sensing to non-specialists. The American Museum of Natural History's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (CBC) has developed a suite of resources to encourage the use of remotely sensed image data among conservation biologists and environmental managers. In particular, the CBC's Remote Sensing and GIS Lab has created a website dedicated to providing practical information for anyone interested in using these resources. The site provides lessons, links to valuable data and software resources, as well as interactive tools that illustrate important topics in remote sensing. In addition to the website, the CBC's Remote Sensing and GIS Lab conducts hands-on training workshops. In the spring of 2005 CBC staff completed a training course in Hue, Vietnam to teach introductory remote sensing skills (such as visual image interpretation, land cover classification, and land cover change analysis) using freely available data and free, open source software. Enabling individuals to identify, view, and interpret image data will assist them in making more effective conservation planning and monitoring decisions. This presentation introduces resources on the CBC remote sensing web site and will provide an overview of several open source GIS and remote sensing software packages.