Oil in the Sahara: Mapping Anthropogenic Threats to Saharan Biodiversity from Space
Oil in the Sahara: mapping anthropogenic threats to Saharan biodiversity from space Clare Duncan1, Daniela Kretz1,2, Martin Wegmann3,4, Thomas Rabeil5 and Nathalie Pettorelli1 rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org 1Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent’s Park, London NW1 4RY, UK 2BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth 95440, Germany 3Department of Remote Sensing, University of Wu¨rzburg, Campus Hubland Nord 86, Wu¨rzburg 97074, Germany 4German Remote Sensing Data Center, German Aerospace Center, Oberpfaffenhofen 82234, Germany 5Sahara Conservation Fund, Niamey, Republic of Niger Research Deserts are among the most poorly monitored and understood biomes in the world, with evidence suggesting that their biodiversity is declining Cite this article: Duncan C, Kretz D, fast. Oil exploration and exploitation can constitute an important threat to Wegmann M, Rabeil T, Pettorelli N. 2014 Oil in fragmented and remnant desert biodiversity, yet little is known about the Sahara: mapping anthropogenic threats to where and how intensively such developments are taking place. This lack of information hinders local efforts to adequately buffer and protect desert Saharan biodiversity from space. Phil. wildlife against encroachment from anthropogenic activity. Here, we Trans. R. Soc. B 369: 20130191. investigate the use of freely available satellite imagery for the detection of http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0191 features associated with oil exploration in the African Sahelo-Saharan region. We demonstrate how texture analyses combined with Landsat data One contribution of 9 to a Theme Issue can be employed to detect ground-validated exploration sites in Algeria and Niger. Our results show that site detection via supervised image classi- ‘Satellite remote sensing for biodiversity fication and prediction is generally accurate.
[Show full text]