scholarly journals Free Aerial Imagery as a Resource to Monitor Compliance with the Endangered Species Act

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Malcom ◽  
Tiffany Kim ◽  
Ya-Wei Li
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
Remotely Sensed ◽  
Aerial Imagery ◽  
Compliance Monitoring ◽  
Remotely Sensed Data ◽  
Commercial Development ◽  
Threatened And Endangered Species ◽  
Cost Efficient ◽  
Using Data

AbstractCompliance monitoring is an integral part of law and policy implementation. A lack of compliance monitoring for the Endangered Species Act (ESA), driven in part by resource limitations, may be undercutting efforts to recover threatened and endangered species. Here we evaluate the utility of freely available satellite and aerial imagery as a cost-efficient component of ESA compliance monitoring. Using data on actions authorized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) under section 7 of the ESA, we show that approximately 40% of actions can be found in remotely sensed imagery. Some types of actions, such as residential and commercial development, roadwork, and forestry, show substantially higher observability. Based on our results and the requirements of compliance monitoring, we recommend FWS standardize data collection requirements for consultations; record and publish terms and conditions of consultations; and encourage their staff to use technology such as remotely sensed data as a central part of their workflow for implementing the ESA.

scholarly journals Data indicate the importance of expert agencies in conservation policy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Evans ◽  
Jacob W. Malcom ◽  
Ya-Wei Li
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Marine Fisheries ◽  
Threatened And Endangered Species ◽  
Using Data ◽  
National Marine Fisheries Service ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Imperiled Species

ABSTRACTData on the implementation of laws and policies are essential to the evaluation and improvement of governance. For conservation laws like the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), such data can inform actions that may determine the persistence or extinction of species. A central but controversial part of the ESA is section 7, which requires federal agencies to conserve threatened and endangered species. One way they do this is by consulting with expert agencies for the ESA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), on actions they may undertake that impact listed species. Using data from all 24,893 consultations recorded by NMFS from 2000 through 2017, we show that federal agencies misestimated the effects of their actions on listed species in 21% of consultations, relative to the conclusions reached by NMFS. In 71% of these cases the federal agency underestimated the effects of their action. Those discrepancies were particularly important for the conservation of 14 species in 22 consultations, where the agency concluded that its action would not harm a species, while NMFS determined the action would jeopardize the species’ existence. Patterns of misestimation varied among federal agencies, and some of the agencies most frequently involved in consultation also frequently misestimated their effects. Jeopardy conclusions were very rare—about 0.3% of consultations—with a few project types more likely to lead to jeopardy. These data highlight the importance of consultation with the expert agencies and reveal opportunities to make the consultation process more effective.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTThe US Endangered Species Act is the strongest environmental law any nation has enacted to conserve imperiled species. However, policy debates over how the Act should be implemented continue to this day. This study provides the first comprehensive evaluation of how the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) implements one of the Act’s most important conservation programs – consultations under section 7. Our results reveal novel insights into the importance of NMFS role in ensuring federal actions do not jeopardize the existence of listed species. By using data to inform policy debate, we identify approaches to implementing section 7 that would undermine the conservation of imperiled species, and those that could improve the efficiency of the program without sacrificing these protections.

scholarly journals Better Representation Is Needed in U.S. Endangered Species Act Implementation

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Malcom ◽  
Andrew Carter
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
The United States ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Gray Wolf ◽  
Picoides Borealis ◽  
Ecological Communities ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Threatened And Endangered Species ◽  
The U.S

In the United States, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses the concepts of resilience, redundancy, and representation—often known as the “3Rs”—to guide implementation of the Endangered Species Act, which requires the U.S. government to designate imperiled species as threatened or endangered, and take action to recover them. The Service has done little, however, to relate the 3Rs to the statutory requirements of the Act. Here we focus on interpreting the concept of representation given core tenets of science and conservation policy. We show that the Service's current interpretation, which focuses on a narrow set of characteristics intrinsic to species that facilitate future adaptation, falls far short of a reasonable interpretation from the scientific literature and other policy, and has significant consequences for the conservation of threatened and endangered species, including those found in other countries. To illustrate the shortcomings in practice, we discuss the cases of the Lower 48 gray wolf (Canis lupus) delisting, the proposed Red-cockadedWoodpecker (Picoides borealis) downlisting, and the possible downlisting of the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis). We then propose an alternative interpretation of representation that accommodates the Service's narrow interpretation and broadens it to include the importance of intraspecific variation for its own sake as well as extrinsic characteristics such as a species' role in ecological communities. We argue that this interpretation better reflects the intent of the Endangered Species Act, the best available science, and policy needs for conserving imperiled wildlife, all of which recognize the importance not only of preventing global extinction but also of preventing ecological extinction and extirpation across significant portions of a species' range.

scholarly journals Spark Sensing: A Cloud Computing Framework to Unfold Processing Efficiencies for Large and Multiscale Remotely Sensed Data, with Examples on Landsat 8 and MODIS Data

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Hai Lan ◽  
Xinshi Zheng ◽  
Paul M. Torrens
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Remotely Sensed ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Remotely Sensed Data ◽  
Environmental Sciences ◽  
Modis Data ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Data Provision ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Local Cloud

Inquiry using data from remote Earth-observing platforms often confronts a straightforward but particularly thorny problem: huge amounts of data, in ever-replenishing supplies, are available to support inquiry, but scientists’ agility in converting data into actionable information often struggles to keep pace with rapidly incoming streams of data that amass in expanding archival silos. Abstraction of those data is a convenient response, and many studies informed purely by remotely sensed data are by necessity limited to a small study area with a relatively few scenes of imagery, or they rely on larger mosaics of images at low resolution. As a result, it is often challenging to thread explanations across scales from the local to the global, even though doing so is often critical to the science under pursuit. Here, a solution is proposed, by exploiting Apache Spark, to implement parallel, in-memory image processing with ability to rapidly classify large volumes of multiscale remotely sensed images and to perform necessary analysis to detect changes on the time series. It shows that processing on three different scales of Landsat 8 data (up to ~107.4 GB, five-scene, time series image sets) can be accomplished in 1018 seconds on local cloud environment. Applying the same framework with slight parameter adjustments, it processed same coverage MODIS data in 54 seconds on commercial cloud platform. Theoretically, the proposed scheme can handle all forms of remote sensing imagery commonly used in the Earth and environmental sciences, requiring only minor adjustments in parameterization of the computing jobs to adjust to the data. The authors suggest that the “Spark sensing” approach could provide the flexibility, extensibility, and accessibility necessary to keep inquiry in the Earth and environmental sciences at pace with developments in data provision.

scholarly journals Better representation is needed in Endangered Species Act implementation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Malcom ◽  
Andrew Carter
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Gray Wolf ◽  
Picoides Borealis ◽  
Lynx Lynx ◽  
Ecological Communities ◽  
Lynx Canadensis ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Threatened And Endangered Species

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses the concepts of resilience, redundancy, and representation—often known as the “3Rs”—to guide implementation of the Endangered Species Act. The Service has done little, however, to relate the 3Rs to the statutory requirements of the Act. Here we focus on interpreting the concept of representation given core tenets of science and conservation policy. We show that the Service’s current interpretation, which focuses on a narrow set of characteristics intrinsic to species that facilitate future adaptation, falls far short of a reasonable interpretation from the scientific literature and other policy, and has significant consequences for the conservation of threatened and endangered species. To illustrate the shortcomings in practice, we discuss the case of the Lower 48 gray wolf (Canis lupus) delisting, the proposed Red-cockaded Woodpecker (Picoides borealis) downlisting, and the possible downlisting of the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis). We then propose an alternative interpretation of representation that accommodates the Service’s narrow interpretation and broadens it to include the importance of intraspecific variation for its own sake as well as extrinsic characteristics such as a species’ role in ecological communities. We argue that this interpretation better reflects the intent of the Endangered Species Act, the best available science, and policy needs for conserving imperiled wildlife.

scholarly journals Missing, delayed, and old: The status of ESA recovery plans

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Malcom ◽  
Ya-Wei Li
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Recovery Planning ◽  
The Past ◽  
Threatened And Endangered Species ◽  
The Status ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Taxonomic Groups ◽  
The U.S

Recovery planning is an essential part of implementing the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), but conservationists and government agencies recognize challenges with the current planning process. Using data from all U.S. domestic and transboundary ESA-listed species, we quantify the completeness, timeliness, age, and other variation among ESA recovery plans over the past 40 years. We show that nearly 1/4 of eligible listed taxa (n = 1,548) lack final recovery plans; half of plans have taken >5 years to finalize after listing; half of recovery plans are more than 20 years old; and there is significant variation between agencies and among regions and taxonomic groups in planning. These results are not unexpected given dwindling budgets and an increasing number of species requiring protection, but underscore the need for systematic improvements to recovery planning. We discuss solutions—some already underway—that may address some of the shortcomings and help improve recovery action implementation for threatened and endangered species.

NEPA, the ESA, and the Tradeoffs of Interagency Coordination

2019 ◽  
pp. 101-124
Author(s):  
Alejandro E. Camacho ◽  
Robert L. Glicksman
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Regulatory Authority ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Compliance Monitoring ◽  
National Environmental Policy Act ◽  
Information Distribution ◽  
Interagency Coordination ◽  
Careful Exploration ◽  
National Environmental

An analysis of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) comparing it to analogous provisions in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) illustrates the value of a careful exploration of interagency coordination-not only the choices that exist for policymakers in deciding the extent to which regulatory authority should be coordinated, but also how policymakers should assess such allocations on a function-by-function basis. Both statutes rely on mechanisms for coordinating certain functions of federal agencies. The chapter argues that NEPA would likely have been more effective if it had extended coordination obligations to information distribution, compliance monitoring, and possibly even project implementation. It suggests that the ESA illustrates one form that formal interagency coordination of implementation and post-decision monitoring might take. The chapter ultimately argues that policymakers should consider the tradeoffs of interagency coordination and independence on a function-by-function basis.

scholarly journals Effect of the revisit interval and temporal upscaling methods on the accuracy of remotely sensed evapotranspiration estimates

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph G. Alfieri ◽  
Martha C. Anderson ◽  
William P. Kustas ◽  
Carmelo Cammalleri
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Spline Interpolation ◽  
Absolute Error ◽  
Remotely Sensed ◽  
Remotely Sensed Data ◽  
Land Cover Types ◽  
Interpolation Methods ◽  
Return Interval ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Logarithmic Relationship

Abstract. Accurate spatially distributed estimates of actual evapotranspiration (ET) derived from remotely sensed data are critical to a broad range of practical and operational applications. However, due to lengthy return intervals and cloud cover, data acquisition is not continuous over time, particularly for satellite sensors operating at medium ( ∼  100 m) or finer resolutions. To fill the data gaps between clear-sky data acquisitions, interpolation methods that take advantage of the relationship between ET and other environmental properties that can be continuously monitored are often used. This study sought to evaluate the accuracy of this approach, which is commonly referred to as temporal upscaling, as a function of satellite revisit interval. Using data collected at 20 Ameriflux sites distributed throughout the contiguous United States and representing four distinct land cover types (cropland, grassland, forest, and open-canopy) as a proxy for perfect retrievals on satellite overpass dates, this study assesses daily ET estimates derived using five different reference quantities (incident solar radiation, net radiation, available energy, reference ET, and equilibrium latent heat flux) and three different interpolation methods (linear, cubic spline, and Hermite spline). Not only did the analyses find that the temporal autocorrelation, i.e., persistence, of all of the reference quantities was short, it also found that those land cover types with the greatest ET exhibited the least persistence. This carries over to the error associated with both the various scaled quantities and flux estimates. In terms of both the root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE), the errors increased rapidly with increasing return interval following a logarithmic relationship. Again, those land cover types with the greatest ET showed the largest errors. Moreover, using a threshold of 20 % relative error, this study indicates that a return interval of no more than 5 days is necessary for accurate daily ET estimates. It also found that the spline interpolation methods performed erratically for long return intervals and should be avoided.

scholarly journals Data contradict common perceptions about a controversial provision of the US Endangered Species Act

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (52) ◽  
pp. 15844-15849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob W. Malcom ◽  
Ya-Wei Li
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Species Conservation ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Threatened And Endangered Species ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Endangered Species Act ◽  
National Marine Fisheries Service ◽  
Imperiled Species ◽  
Analyze Data

Separating myth and reality is essential for evaluating the effectiveness of laws. Section 7 of the US Endangered Species Act (Act) directs federal agencies to help conserve threatened and endangered species, including by consulting with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or National Marine Fisheries Service on actions the agencies authorize, fund, or carry out. Consultations ensure that actions do not violate the Act’s prohibitions on “jeopardizing” listed species or “destroying or adversely modifying” these species’ critical habitat. Because these prohibitions are broad, many people consider section 7 the primary tool for protecting species under the Act, whereas others believe section 7 severely impedes economic development. This decades-old controversy is driven primarily by the lack of data on implementation: past analyses are either over 25 y old or taxonomically restricted. We analyze data on all 88,290 consultations recorded by FWS from January 2008 through April 2015. In contrast to conventional wisdom about section 7 implementation, no project was stopped or extensively altered as a result of FWS finding jeopardy or adverse modification during this period. We also show that median consultation duration is far lower than the maximum allowed by the Act, and several factors drive variation in consultation duration. The results discredit many of the claims about the onerous nature of section 7 but also raise questions as to how federal agencies could apply this tool more effectively to conserve species. We build on the results to identify ways to improve the effectiveness of consultations for imperiled species conservation and increase the efficiency of consultations.

scholarly journals Missing, delayed, and old: The status of ESA recovery plans

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Malcom ◽  
Ya-Wei Li
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Recovery Planning ◽  
The Past ◽  
Threatened And Endangered Species ◽  
The Status ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Taxonomic Groups ◽  
The U.S

Recovery planning is an essential part of implementing the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), but conservationists and government agencies recognize challenges with the current planning process. Using data from all U.S. domestic and transboundary ESA-listed species, we quantify the completeness, timeliness, age, and other variation among ESA recovery plans over the past 40 years. Among eligible listed taxa (n = 1,548), nearly 1/4 lack final recovery plans; half of plans have taken >5 years to finalize after listing; half of recovery plans are more than 20 years old; and there is significant variation in planning between agencies, and among regions and taxonomic groups. These results are not unexpected given dwindling budgets and an increasing number of species requiring protection, but underscore the need for systematic improvements to recovery planning. We discuss solutions—some already underway—that may address some of the shortcomings and help improve recovery action implementation for threatened and endangered species.

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