Conservation GIS Lab

To achieve the U.S. national 30 x 30 conservation goal to protect 30% of our environment by 2030, there is a need for common definitions and coordination to assess which lands and waters are most essential to protect, restore, and connect. Working with mentors from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) North America, W&M students will use the new American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas to explore how to combine biodiversity targets, environmental justice goals, and socio-cultural and economic priorities to identify high-priority conservation areas. Students will explore patterns in the data, who has been involved in the definition of and will be impacted by the biodiversity prioritization, and how to best combine available datasets to maximize shared priorities in order to meet the 30x30 goal.

Partner: US Fish and Wildlife Service

The use of remote sensing in aerial wildlife surveys is a relatively new technique that results in spatially-explicit datasets over broad geographies. Although the primary goal of these datasets is often to estimate population sizes of species, the characteristics of the data provide an ideal opportunity to better understand species-habitat relationships and the effect management on species’ distributions. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) annually conducts low-level, aerial surveys of sandhill crane during the daytime when they are foraging. In partnership with William & Mary, the USFWS Division of Migratory Bird Management, W&M students have developed a fully functioning deep learning workflow and model that results in geospatial data on the abundance and distribution of roosting sandhill cranes at a critical migratory stopover site. The dataset is also expected to grow with a second year of data in the spring of 2025. A new team of W&M students will collect geospatial environmental data informed by the expertise of biologists and managers and will synthesize abundance and location data on sandhill cranes to develop statistical models to quantify species-habitat relationships of sandhill crane. These data, and the derived species-habitat relationships, will contribute towards an improved understanding of the ecology, habitat associations, and management of the species.

Partner: Rural Australia

Working alongside Rural Australia, partners, and First Nations Peoples from the Limestone Coast of Australia, students will take a GIS approach to support their collaborative landscape conservation project aimed at restoring ecosystem processes and function as well as cultural and socioeconomic linkages to the ecosystems. Under the direction of Rural Australia and their partners, the students would identify and compile a database of GIS layers that can be used to explore the various dimensions of this important landscape and to inform collaborative restoration efforts. The layers included in the database will center on vegetation species and dynamics and the factors that may influence these patterns at the landscape scale.

Partner: KBA Team

Key Biodiversity Areas are geographic regions that have been identified as important sites for protecting biodiversity. Working alongside the KBA team, W&M students will have an opportunity to explore how to integrate tools needed to identify and evaluate the impacts of KBAs into QGIS.

Partner: Ripley Conservancy

W&M students will work alongside Ripley Bird Conservancy to create engaging, interpretive maps that engage audiences in bird and water conservation. The student will create a map of the wetland areas, migratory bird routes, and other important aspects of the ecosystem that can be used to engage and educate audiences about the importance of conservation. The student may also create some education signage or interpretive materials that would utilize GIS to engage audiences in conservation.

Partners: Wetlands Watch and Dr. Fernando Galeana Rodriguez

Wetlands Watch is a nonprofit organization that aims to "enhance natural resilience, bolster community adaptation efforts, and protect and restore wetlands throughout Virginia. They advance climate adaptation by working collaboratively with a wide variety of stakeholders, and by implementing solution-focused strategies that unify and connect." W&M students will have an opportunity to work with Wetlands Watch to map their community science data collection efforts and will compile GIS data layers to help explore the ways in which their community science efforts can support wetland restoration, climate resilience and environmental justice in Virginia. Through the course of the semester, the student will work with Wetland Watch to better understand how GIS mapping tools may support their efforts. The student will them map existing data from Wetland Watch and will compile GIS layers that can support Wetland Watch with their efforts.

Partner: American Trails

As we witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic, trials play an important role in human well-being, human health, and community, and in nurturing the connection between people and their environments. But as trail usage and variety of use increases across the US, there is a need for a framework to support trail users effectively managing these important trail resources to ensure their sustained benefit for all people and to minimize the negative impacts of trail usage on the environments the users are using the trails to access and enjoy.

American Trails is a non-profit organization that connects and transforms communities through the power of trails, and they aim to support trail user communities with tools and resources to support sustainable and inclusive stewardship of trails across the US. Unfortunately, American Trails is limited by the lack of a standard, national-level map of all trails in the US, which is a result of the various organizations, many of them volunteer community organizations, who manage and create the maps of their trails all over the nation.

An ambitious team of W&M students have the exciting opportunity to work with American Trails to begin to create this national-level, collaborative trails map. The first step is to create a StoryMap that tells the story of American Trail's efforts to support trail stewards all over the US with the creation of a cohesive map that supports their efforts and broader coordination among trail users all over the US. Further, a student with experience in AI and deep learning approaches, will work with American Trails to help explore potential strategies for compiling existing trail information from various formats needed to create a cohesive map. The team of students will present their Storymap and proposed approach for the compilation of trail data at the International Trails Summit in April, 2025!

Partner: National Forest Foundation

Background – The National Forest Foundation is designing biodiversity metrics assessment approach that will give funders insights into the impacts of field projects on flora and fauna populations. Given the wide variety of species, types of data and formats of data available, consolidating and synthesizing these datasets will be a critical path to understanding the gaps in this space and where the NFF may develop further.

The Need – The NFF would like to conduct high level mapping exercises of available and relevant datasets in order to help us understand what is already available (federal/state/tribal level) and how that data relates to our project areas. Through this analysis, we would like to identify high priority areas (ecologically/biologically sensitive areas) on National Forest lands and where current field projects are being implemented, that have various biodiversity data and markers already being tracked and monitored.

Desired Output - The end result will be the identification of NFF project areas that could serve as pilot locations for the biodiversity impact metrics program. These areas will check the boxes across being categorized as ecologically sensitive, on National Forest land, on land associated with current field projects, and have a wealth of key biodiversity data already available.

Skills Required – Data gathering, data cleaning, overlay analysis, results presentation. A student with a background in ecology or biology could be an ideal fit for this project.

Data Required – All required data and information for this project should be public and accessible for this student project.

Partner: Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

W&M students are invited to work alongside Dr. Mertes and collaborators to explore research questions about the factors that drive movement of reintroduced scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah), addax (Addax nasomaculatus), and other highly endangered species to the Reserve de Faune du Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim in Chad (RFOROA). This reintroduction project is a joint initiative of the Government of Chad and the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi and is implemented by SaharaConservation, in partnership with the Ministry for the Environment, Fisheries and Sustainable Development. W&M students will work alongside SNZCBI scientists to analyze movement data from tracking devices placed on reintroduced animals to track their movements. Using movement and remote sensing data, students will have the opportunity to explore questions about the spatial and temporal movements of reintroduced ungulates, their clustering, and their ecology in order to inform management and conservation of these reintroduced species.

Partners: Private Landowners in Colorado

A W&M student will have a unique opportunity to work with private landowners in the mountains of Colorado to explore, from an integrative lens, patterns of land use, trails, and vegetation which is needed for the landowners to inform and evaluate their management strategies. Colorado’s high-elevation mountain ecosystems are home to important ecosystem biodiversity, including many alpine species and migratory species that are responding to changes in temperature and precipitation. Simultaneously, recreational use of alpine ecosystems is growing exponentially, adding an additional threat to the sensitive alpine ecosystems. Private landowners play an important role in protecting Colorado’s alpine, mountain forests, and foothill ecosystems across the Southern Rocky Mountains. This project will aid these landowners with maps and spatial analyses that will aid the landowners with managing their important lands in the face of change.