A Novel Automated Biodiversity Monitoring and Conservation Information System with Google Earth Engine

Abstract

Biodiversity entails a vast set of earth’s life, including animals, plants, micro-organisms, and organisms under water. It contains the ecosystem variation. Lately, both human and natural activities have contributed to biodiversity degradation at an alarming rate. Land use activities have contributed to biodiversity interference. Natural disasters like earth quakes, drought, hurricanes, floods have significantly contributed to biodiversity disturbance. Biodiversity degradation is attracting the attention of scientists and decision makers locally and at a global scale because of its’ importance in the natural reservoir and outstanding economic potential.

In Kenya, the human interference on ecosystem is greatly felt and its’ effects negatively affecting human life, livestock, wild life, forests and life under water. The increased biodiversity degradation associated with exponential human population growth, declining rainfall and striking temperature rise. The economic cost of biodiversity loss in Kenya, amounts to 1.3 billion dollars annually. The country’s GDP is affected at the extent of 1.3 billion dollars resulting to 4.9%. More than 12 million Kenyans reside in degraded lands. Additionally, Wildlife declined by 68% threatening the species extinction and population viability. Livestock numbers declined by 25.2% because of lack of feed and sufficient water. 

Researchers intent to implement a new monitoring approach in Nakuru, Narok and Baringo counties in Kenya considering their gradual change in biodiversity richness. The selected counties suffer increased soil erosion, agro-biodiversity loss, low productivity, forest loss, water basins reduction, and soil nutrient depletion. The proposed tool uses remote sensing, readily available data in Google Earth Engine (GEE) data catalogue to develop a real-time monitoring biodiversity tool to classify key aspects, assess the change, and identify major contributing disturbances. Expected results are a real-time online Google Earth Engine application used for biodiversity monitoring for decision support. We combine GEE catalogue data with ground data to understand the major biodiversity aggravators.