About Space4Restoration
Region: Multiple case study sites worldwide (now Netherlands and Lebanon more to come)
Description: The worldwide restoration of degraded ecosystems is crucial to halt biodiversity loss and to mitigate the effect of global climate change. The effective restoration of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and marine and coastal ecosystems was included as one of the global targets for 2030 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, is a key component of the new EU’s Nature Restoration Law, and is the core of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration that started in 2021.
Restoration initiatives across the globe are aiming to improve the state of nature, and simultaneously provide nature’s crucial benefits to people. Credible and meaningful monitoring and evaluation of these efforts is needed to learn from past and ongoing initiatives, and to make wiser decisions for new restoration actions. The Space4Restoration project aims to design, test and finetune scalable online earth observation-based methods to monitor and evaluate restoration actions across biomes. In this project, we build on the work pioneered by ITC and in very close collaboration with organisations working on international restoration standards, and practitioners for test sites and user perspectives.
As underlying method, Space4Restoration uses counterfactual analyses (“What would have happened if the intervention hadn’t taken place?”) to assess the effectiveness of restoration interventions. We base these analyses on datasets provided by restoration practitioners, complemented by free and open satellite earth observation datasets (e.g., Sentinel-1 and 2, Landsat), and other spatial data such as weather, soil, topography maps. Space4Restoration embraces Open Science and all developed software tools will be shared under a permissive license through the project’s code sharing GitHub page (see https://github.com/Space4Restoration)
Partners: Lebanon Restoration Initiative, Natuurmonumenten
Sponsor: ITC Ingenuity
Organisations
Dialogue Event
On May 28-29 the Dialogue Event Restoration of Biodiversity, Habitats and Ecosystems was held at the French “Ministère de la transition écologique et de la cohésion des territoires” in Paris. Space4Restoration member Wietske Bijker participated in this event where about 30 experts from Europe brainstormed on restoration of biodiversity in habitats and ecosystems. We focussed on the knowledge gaps and capacity building regarding science-based support for prioritisation and ensuring restoration in the long term. It was an inspiring event and the resulting document will become available about mid 2024!
OpenCoRe
The project proposal OpenCoRe (Open Toolset for Earth Observation-based Nature Conservation and Restoration Impact Evaluation) of the Space4Restoration team was granted funding by the Dutch Research Council's NWO Open Science Fund 2023.
This funding will allow Jasper Van donick and others in the Space4Resoration team to further develop open, user-oriented tools integrating earth observation data processing and impact evaluation of ecosystem restoration and conservation interventions.
NWA funding
How do changes in biodiversity and climate affect each other in Dutch landscapes? That question is at the heart of the six-year COMBINED project that the Dutch Research Council NWO awarded today. COMBINED will be led by Wieteke Willemen and members of Space4Restoration will participate in this new project using earth observation techniques to evaluate the resilience of species to extreme drought and heat events in the context of restoration efforts. https://www.itc.nl/news/2023/11/1241366/nwo-grants-six-year-project-into-climate-and-nature-in-the-netherlands
GEO BON Global Conference
Space4Restoration was represented at the GEO BON Global Conference in Montreal, Canada. The oral presentation by Jasper Van doninck and others A workflow to evaluate ecosystem restoration impact based on earth observation datasets was presented in the session “Tools and Models for Biodiversity Monitoring”.
One year after COP15 of the UN CBD and the landmark agreement of a Global Biodiversity Framework, the GEO BON Global Conference focused on the grand challenge of ‘Monitoring Biodiversity for Action’. A central theme was the development of best practices and new technologies for biodiversity observations and monitoring to support transformative policy and conservation action.
Article alert!
Trinidad del Río-Mena and Wieteke Willemen authored the article How remote sensing choices influence ecosystem services monitoring and evaluation results of ecological restoration interventions in the journal Ecosystem Services. In the article they investigate how different factors (number of control pixels, spatial distribution of control pixels, intra-annual image selection, reference periods, and sensor) influence the results of a Before-After-Control-Impact impact evaluation of a restoration project in Baviaanskloof, South Afrika.
Matthieu’s last day
Today is Matthieu’s last day as an intern at ITC. In a presentation about his time with us, he told us everything there is to know about the Buurserzand Natura 2000 management plan and the management interventions in the area, discussed his work on remotely sensed time series analysis, and showed the results of his fieldwork in the area.
Thanks for being with us Matthieu! We wish you the best of luck in the continuation of your studies and hope to see you again soon.
Situ measurements
Matthieu Verlynde is taking advantage of the nice weather this week to make in situ measurements at the Buurserzand nature area (Natura 2000) and enjoy the local fauna and flora. Using a fixed sampling protocol and the “high-tech” proximal remote sensing technique seen in the photo, Matthieu is registering fractional land cover at 37 plots in this heterogeneous landscape.
