In the 1950s my grandpa bought some farmland near Madison with the intention of developing and selling it. It remains undeveloped to this day, and each year is rented to a grower who farms it. In recent years, I’ve worked with my father to conserve portions of the land and improve the environmental practices on the area that is still farmed. These experiences sparked my interest in studying how technology can help farmers improve their profits and the environment at the same time.
Continue reading Down to earth: how satellite images help farmersCLOSER — Creating networks for roads accessibility within dane county
Where
This summer, I’ll be working as an AASPIRE intern for Madison Area Transportation Planning Board under Planning Division in City of Madison.
Continue reading CLOSER — Creating networks for roads accessibility within dane county
A map for the city trees
This summer I’ll be spending time mapping Wisconsin’s urban forests with a few new techniques, aimed to improve current assessments and hopefully be of use to the Wisconsin DNR’s Forestry Department as well as myself. What is an urban forest? Well it’s certainly not defined by the number of trees, but rather the number of people that surround them in specific municipalities. I have to admit, upon discovering this project, I had to look that one up. All in all, this summer will be full of exploration, pioneering and innovation within this realm and I couldn’t be more eager to be a part of it.
Continue reading A map for the city treesFire Detection in Panama
For my placement, I will be working with the Azuero Earth Project (AEP), an organization located on Panama’s Azuero Peninsula that focuses on reforestation, habitat restoration, sustainable land use and environmental education.
Reforestation projects in the Azuero region of Panama often face multiple threats such as fire use due to cultural reasons and harvesting. Having an idea of what geographic areas and time periods are most vulnerable to fire can be beneficial to protecting AEP’s reforestation efforts.
Global Forest Watch have produced tools to monitor fire-related threats on a global level. AEP activated Global Forest Watch fire and harvest alerts over the dry season in 2018 and registered fire and harvesting threats on the peninsula. The GFW data is a global dataset, so the extent to which they work in registering forest threats at the local level still need to be investigated. I will be working on fire detection during the 2018 dry season using high resolution images limited to the Azuero region, then I will create maps of actual fire and harvest distributions.
Some secondary projects I will be working on involve my design and spatial analysis skills. I will redesign the Azuero map using my cartography knowledge and design skills, design infographics for AEP, and create a Collector App by using ArcGIS to allow researchers to collect plant information in the field in an accessible way.
I look forward to heading to Pedasi soon to work with a motivated, international group of people doing important work, and to use my remote sensing knowledge and skills in a practical setting.
The good, The bad, the Dead. Mapping California tree mortality.
The Organization
The company I’m working with is Salo Sciences, Inc. in San Fransisco, California. Salo is a conservation analytics & monitoring company focused on using remotely sensed data to improve conservation effort and promote sustainable ecosystem management.
Mapping Land use and linear intrusions
For my summer placement project, I will be working with Wildlife First, a wildlife advocacy non profit based in Bengaluru, India to create maps of the Nethravathi river basin. Nethravathi river basin lies in the south western part of peninsular India. Tributaries of Nethravathi river originate in the forested mountains which are part of the Western Ghats, a mountain range which runs North to south along the West coast of India. These forests are home to many threatened and endemic species such as the Asian Elephant, Tiger, Leopard, Gaur and act as a critical link between Kudremukh National Park in the North and Talacauvery Wildlife Sanctuary in the South.
Continue reading Mapping Land use and linear intrusionssolar roadmap project at The nature conservancy on Long island
It’s actually been just about one month that I’ve been out here on Long Island and additional two since starting work. I’m here at The Nature Conservancy’s chapter in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, a town that lives up to the idyllic setting conjured up in my mind by its name. Even doing my research beforehand, I was still surprised by how quiet and serene it is out here just up the hill from the shore along the Long Island Sound. The office I work at is actually a repurposed barn on a parcel of land also used as a research farm, and is therefore among the more classically-Midwestern-feeling places I’ve had the pleasure to spend any amount of time despite it being about an hour train ride from New York City.
URBAN CHANGE DETECTION IN Middleton
Company
The company for which I work is Syncarto, LLC in Madison, WI. Syncarto ( https://syncarto.com/ ) is a cloud native collaborative mapping platform. I will contribute to the prototype of urban change detection in support of the Syncarto web application.
Continue reading URBAN CHANGE DETECTION IN Middleton
Keeping Wisconsin’s Wildlife Wild
“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” -Aldo Leopold
For my placement, I am grateful to join the team at the Dane County Humane Society’s Wildlife Center as an intern. The wildlife center is a non-profit organization in Madison, Wisconsin that takes in around 4,000 wild animals in need each year and fields more than 5,000 calls from the public annually. The center follows the mission of the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association, which is “to provide professional care to sick, injured, and orphaned wild animals so ultimately they can be returned to their natural habitat.” Wildlife Rehabilitation is important not only for respecting the lives of individual animals (including their right to humane euthanasia when necessary,) but also for tracking and studying ecological trends and zoological diseases with vast implications for conservation. The center doesn’t receive any funding from the government and relies on donations. They have 6 paid staff members and hundreds of hardworking volunteers!
Continue reading Keeping Wisconsin’s Wildlife Wild
The trail to empowerment
The Ice Age National Scenic Trail winds over 12,000 miles through the landscapes of Wisconsin. Its route follows the edge of this region’s most recent glaciation. From the Ice Age Trail, hikers can see countless glacial features such as kettles and moraines, as well as the ecosystems and cultures which make up the State.
My summer placement with the Ice Age Trail Alliance focuses specifically on the work of their Saunters program. Based on a quote from John Muir; “it is a great art to saunter”, the program seeks to connect youth with the Ice Age Trail. Through this connection, the Saunters program ensures future interest in our public lands, educates today’s youth about biology and environmental conservation, and most importantly empowers the leaders of tomorrow. My two closest colleagues in this work will be Amy Lord, who heads the Saunters program, and Abbey Leary, and undergraduate summer intern with the program.
Continue reading The trail to empowerment
The Nelson Institute: Environmental Conservation Leadership Projects 