Landscape Ecology - Advances and Applications of Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS) Research in Landscape Ecology
Guest Editors
Miguel Villarreal, U.S. Geological Survey, Western Geographic Science Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA
Tara B. B. Bishop, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA
Temuulen Tsagaan Sankey, School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA
William Kolby Smith, School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
Themes and Objective
Small Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS; aka drones) have become increasingly popular research tools in the environmental sciences, allowing scientist to generate low-cost, high quality and high-resolution imagery that are complimentary to other remote sensing data. Very-high resolution UAS image products and surface models are particularly suited for observing ecosystems at local-scales and are increasingly being used to fill a gap between field surveys and satellite remote sensing. Landscape ecologists have long depended on satellite and aerial remote sensing data to address questions about landscape patterns, structure, processes, and landscape changes. However, we have been slow to embrace and exploit UAS technologies, perhaps due to the scale mismatch between UAS data and other coarse-resolution remote sensing data typically used in studying landscape patterns and processes.
The purpose of this collection is to highlight new research and ideas presented during the symposium “Advances and Applications of Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS) Research in Landscape Ecology” held during the IALE-North America Annual Meeting (this opens in a new tab)—national chapter of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (this opens in a new tab)—on March 19-23, 2023; and to integrate UAS data into landscape-scale analysis.
We welcome manuscripts that: 1) demonstrate innovative UAS research applications that address current knowledge gaps and span spatial scales, 2) highlight advances in UAS hardware, software, and sensor technologies, and 3) provide thoughtful discussion about the opportunities, limitations, and challenges of working with UAS data. We welcome papers across a diversity of topics and ecosystems (i.e., wildfire, drought, climate change, landcover and vegetation changes, urban landscapes, wildlife studies) as well as technological and methodological advances (i.e., applications of hyperspectral and thermal-IR data, photogrammetry, scaling from UAS to satellite, open source and cloud-based workflows). Some of the contributions will support United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 13: Climate Action (this opens in a new tab) and 15: Life on Land (this opens in a new tab).
Students and Early Career Researchers (this opens in a new tab)1 are encouraged to submit their research to this collection.
Pre-submission enquiries are welcome.
1 Cannot be combined with an APC token.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: May 31, 2024
- Please follow the submission guidelines (this opens in a new tab) and our checklist (this opens in a new tab).
- Please submit online via SNAPP (this opens in a new tab) and select article type “Collection: Advances and Applications of Unoccupied Aerial Systems”.
EXPECTED PUBLICATION: 2024
Landscape Ecology is an open access journal (this opens in a new tab) in which an article processing charge applies (this opens in a new tab). Please see our Journal Pricing FAQs (this opens in a new tab) for general APC information and our APC Funding & Support Services (this opens in a new tab) for assistance.
Members of the International Association for Landscape Ecology are entitled to a discount off the APC of their accepted paper in Landscape Ecology. Members should send their APC token2 request directly to the IALE Vice-Secretary General (this opens in a new tab).
2 Cannot be combined with the SERC incentive.
About the Guest Editors
Dr. Miguel Villarreal is a Research Geographer with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Geographic Science Center. His research involves using multi-scale remote sensing data and spatial analyses to better understand how disturbances such as wildfire, invasive species, and energy development affect ecosystems, ecosystem services, and human communities. Dr. Villarreal’s geographic focus is on water-limited (dryland) regions of North America, which are particularly sensitive to complex interactions between human land use, natural disturbances, and climate change. His current research projects include studies of wildfire and wildlife in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, remote sensing of the impacts and recovery of oil and gas and solar energy developments in the desert Southwest, and mapping and monitoring biological soil crusts and invasive grasses across the western US. Dr. Villarreal works closely with federal land managers and other partners to develop and implement research projects. Both his current and recent research projects can be viewed here (this opens in a new tab).
Dr. Tara B. B. Bishop’s current research interests involve desert community ecology focusing on how disturbance, such as wildfire, climate change, and grazing, affect the plant community. Recent research projects include using drones to quantify effects of invasion of exotic grasses in rare endemic plant habitat in the Mojave Desert, how extreme drought and different grazing strategies will alter desert perennial grasslands on the Colorado Platea, and how changes in precipitation timing and wildfire affect plant competition and invasion patterns by modifying community trophic interactions (i.e., rodent consumers). She is currently leading a cooperative multi-agency (USFS, BLM, NPS) effort to map current ecological states across the Colorado Plateau to characterize fire prone pinyon-juniper ecosystems into state and transition models. Dr. Bishop is also interested in using GIS platforms and remote sensing to map invasive grass species across the major deserts of the Western United States and using hyperspectral imagery to link plant species to distribution and ecosystem change. She is also working to connect those results with the quantification of plant community change by using historical repeat photography across the Colorado Plateau National Parks from as early as 1903.
Dr. Temuulen Tsagaan Sankey is a Professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA. Her research focuses on UAS data fusion with other remote sensing images in landscape ecology applications. Specifically, Dr. Sankey develops remote sensing methods with UAS lidar, hyperspectral, thermal, and multispectral images in forestry, rangeland, ecohydrology, and fire science research. She fuses UAS data with various satellite images such as those from WorldView, Sentinel, Landsat, and ECOSTRESS sensors as well as terrestrially-based sensors including lidar, thermal, and hyperspectral sensors. Funded by various land management agencies, Dr. Sankey’s remote sensing research spans local, regional, and continental scales. A list of her degrees and scholarship and creative activity can be viewed here (this opens in a new tab).
Dr. William Kolby Smith is an Associate Professor in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment and PI of the Smith Lab at the University of Arizona. His area of expertise is in ecosystem ecology with a specialization in multi-scale remote sensing techniques. Dr. Smith’s lab focuses on understanding the complex responses of the terrestrial biosphere to climate change, rising atmospheric CO2, and land-use change across temporal and spatial scales through the integration of remote sensing observations, field network data, and ecosystem process models. Remote sensing data commonly used by researchers in the Smith lab are derived from instruments self-deployed at field sites, Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UASs), and Earth Observing platforms such as LandSat, MODIS, AMSR-E, OCO-2, SMAP, NEON AOP, etc. Other complementary data used in the Smith lab include eddy flux tower networks (e.g., AmeriFlux), tree-ring networks (e.g., ITRDB), ecological research networks (e.g., LTER), and Terrestrial Biosphere Model syntheses (e.g., TRENDY). Read more about his degrees and awards here (this opens in a new tab).
Contact Information
Miguel Villarreal
U.S. Geological Survey
Western Geographic Science Center
Moffett Field, CA
USA
mvillarreal@usgs.gov (this opens in a new tab)
@miggeograph (this opens in a new tab)
Tara B. B. Bishop
Utah Valley University
Orem, UT
USA
tbishop@uvu.edu (this opens in a new tab)
@coleoptara (this opens in a new tab)
Temuulen Tsagaan Sankey
School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ
USA
temuulen.sankey@nau.edu (this opens in a new tab)
William Kolby Smith
School of Natural Resources and the Environment
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ
USA
wksmith@arizona.edu (this opens in a new tab)
@Wkolby (this opens in a new tab)
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