Topic 4d - Biodiversity and Resource Management
In this video, Dr Nathalie Pettorelli explains how Earth observation can be applied to the protection of biodiversity, and explores how satellites provide the necessary information upon which scientists, conservationists and decision makers can act. Nathalie also introduces her particular work in this area, highlighting how satellite data products have been instrumental in contributing to the conservation of particular species in desert and mangrove ecosystems.
Biodiversity can be considered as a measure of the variety of organisms present in a particular ecosystem or location. Maintenance of biodiversity is not only very important in its own right, but it also provides us with many important so-called ‘ecosystem services’ and other societal benefits.
Unacceptable losses in biodiversity, due to factors such as unsustainable resource exploitation, climate change, urbanisation, and pollution, need to be addressed through policy. In order to do this, areas where biodiversity is most threatened need to be recognized, and where these threats are coming from needs to be identified. We need up-to-date and accurate global monitoring systems in place for this, but vulnerable and endangered plants and animals are often found in areas that can be hard to observe with ground-based surveys, and the direct quantification of ‘biodiversity’ from Earth observation data can be challenging.
Earth observation does, however, provide a consistent method of observing and monitoring remote regions of the planet, and one that can detect changes such as forest degradation and removal that may impact on biodiversity, and which are occurring over both short and long periods of time. This type of satellite data is therefore regularly used in decision making processes and management initiatives related to the maintenance of biodiversity, such as in the routine monitoring of protected areas and national parks.
Featured Experts:
- Dr Nathalie Pettorelli
(Desert images provided by Thomas Rabeil, Sahara Conservation Fund; some Mangrove photographic images provided by Clare Duncan, Zoological Society of London)
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Don’t forget you can download the video, transcript and take any quizzes available with the links on the right.
