Byrnes, Jarrett: University of Massachusetts, Boston (Project Lead)
Project Funding:
2017 - 2018
NRA: 2016 NASA: Citizen Science for Earth Systems Program
Funded by Other US Funding: Amanda Whitehurst/Kevin Murphy, NASA
Abstract:
Climate change is rapidly impacting numerous ecosystems. Climate-related impacts on foundation species, dominant species that provide food and habitat, are particularly consequential. Giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, is a globally distributed foundation species that supports some of the most productive coastal ecosystems in the world. However, giant kelp is sensitive to changes in environmental conditions; we do not know how its global distribution and abundance has changed in the modern era.
Characterizing change in kelps at even regional scales is impractical via field sampling. Luckily, increases in the availability of long-term global satellite imagery has made it possible to observe kelp forests at large spatial and temporal scales via Landsat. However, the process of creating maps of kelp canopy from satellite imagery has defied automation, requiring time-consuming manual analysis. Here we propose to expand the geographic scope of a citizen science platform using Landsat data (http://floatingforests.org) to examine change in giant kelp abundance over time and ask fundamental questions about climate impacts on global kelp productivity. This project will develop a generalized tool in collaboration with Zooniverse to build online citizen science projects using Landsat imagery.
Prototype Phase:
Thus far, we have collaborated with the online citizen science organization Zooniverse to build a platform, Floating Forests, to harness the power of citizen science to map the worldâ€TMs giant kelp forests over 30 years (http://floatingforests.org). We have amassed an initial dataset of over 2 million classifications to validate citizen science classifications of kelp. We are now ready to move from small regional datasets to map the planet alongside our citizen scientists and answer fundamental questions about the effects of global change on giant kelp at an unprecedented scale.
Given these efforts, we have established our next set of goals to move the project forward. 1) Finalize a data pipeline converting user-generated data into geospatial data ready for analysis. 2) Finalize calibration and validation of user classifications with pre- existing expert classifications. 3) Use the process of importing remaining Landsat data for the rest of the planet to create a generalized Landsat-Zooniverse data pipeline. 4) Finalize a data-sharing framework so that citizen scientists can access ith Floating Forests data. 5) Begin crafting an education and outreach strategy to broaden our reach.
Implementation Phase:
During implementation, we will address our scientific goals by using data to model the long-term changes in giant kelp. We will merge our kelp data with variables such as water temperature (from MODIS data), nutrients (derived from sea surface temperatures in certain regions), photosynthetically available radiation (from MODIS ocean color data), wave disturbance (from Wave Watch III) and human impact variables to model the impact of human and environmental drivers on giant kelp forests.
We will use lessons learned from our data import process to aid Zooniverse’s efforts to expand the functionality of their Project Builder to support the broader research community in creating citizen science projects based on NASA satellite data. The Zooniverse team will host in-person and online training workshops for researchers in using the Project Builder to build their own Landsat-based crowd-sourced research projects, incorporate the results into their research, and sustain and nurture their online volunteer communities.
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):
