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University of Twente: Fighting the nature crisis from space
As humans, we’re currently facing two big environmental crises: climate change and biodiversity loss. The first managed to gain a lot of public attention and funding, whereas the latter goes on more slowly in the background. One of the key problems the biodiversity crisis is facing, is the few ways to monitor biodiversity. In his recent publication, Prof Dr Andrew Skidmore and his team linked existing remote sensing products to so-called essential biodiversity variables (EBVs) in order to measure biodiversity using satellites.
Measuring biodiversity from space
NASA scientists use satellites to map the vegetation index, which is the greenness of all of the land on Earth. Dark green areas indicate a lot of green leaf growth; light greens show where there was some green leaf growth; and tan areas show little or no growth. Black means no data. Credit: NASA
May 13, 2021
Written by Kristen Kusek, Communications Director for USF CMS
Scientists have warned us for years that we could be entering the sixth mass extinction event in planetary history – this time, caused by human activities. Escalating biodiversity loss threatens valuable ecosystem services and human well-being, from agriculture