Engage with BioSCape
Review content from our latest Training Workshop
BioSCape recently held a 3-day in-person data analysis workshop in Cape Town, South Africa. The workshop equipped participants with the skills to find, subset, and visualize the various BioSCape field and airborne (imaging spectroscopy and full-waveform lidar) data sets. Participants learned data skills through worked examples in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, including: wrangling lidar data, performing band math calculations, calculating spectral diversity metrics, machine learning and image classification, and mapping functional traits using partial least squares regression.
Catch up with BioSCape content from ESA
We recently presented a special session at the Ecological Society of America meeting. The session introduced how to access and analyze some of the BioSCape data products.
Read the BioSCape Annual Reports
BioSCape has written up our successes, lessons learned, and future opportunities.
Check out data from previous NASA airborne projects
This will help you get an idea of the kinds of airborne data products you can expect from BioSCape.
AVIRIS-NG data from other projects
PRISM data from other projects
Use EMIT, ECOSTRESS, PACE, and GEDI data
Download data from NASA's EMIT, ECOSTRESS, PACE, or GEDI satellite sensors over the BioSCape study region to practise working with these new types of data.
EMIT and ECOSTRESS are imaging spectrometers aboard the International Space Station that collects data similar to AVIRIS-NG and HyTES imaging spectrometers. PACE is a new ocean color instrument similar to PRISM, and GEDI is a lidar instrument that collected data similar to the LVIS instrument in BioSCape.
Training resources on how to use these data are available- for example you can learn how to Apply ECOSTRESS and EMIT to Ecological Problems, access the EMIT Workshop Website, or learn how to work with EMIT and PACE data or EMIT and NEON data together.
Complete our online Training Course
The ARSET training series Biodiversity Applications for Airborne Imaging Systems is freely available to watch online. The course highlighted the use of hyperspectral Visible to Shortwave Infrared (VSWIR) imaging spectroscopy data, for example from AVIRIS-NG and PRISM instruments, for measuring and monitoring terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity (e.g., mapping plant or phytoplankton functional types). The series also focused on using thermal and lidar data for characterizing the structure and function of ecosystems using airborne campaigns including the Hyperspectral Thermal Emission Spectrometer (HyTES) and NASA's Land, Vegetation, and Ice Sensor (LVIS).
Review material from our Spectroscopy Workshop
You can watch a recording of the introductory lectures, and slides are available for additional content about i) Foliar Trait Modeling, ii) Field Spectroscopy Best Practices, and iii) Aquatic Field Spectroscopy. This workshop was supported by UNESCO.
Inspect BioSCape's airborne data coverage
The BioSCape data portal currently holds all quicklooks from the project - this shows you where data was collected. Toggle layers on and off in the left hand panel to view acquisitions from different sensors, and zoom in and out to see if your region of interest was flown.
Enroll for Short Courses at Stellenbosch University
The Centre for Geographical Analysis runs three great courses - Introduction to GIS, Introduction to Earth Observation, and Advanced Earth Observation.
Contribute to iNaturalist
If you are in the 'BioSCape domain' in South Africa, you can help by making observations that are broadly useful to BioSCape on iNaturalist, a citizen science platform. We will use these observations in research to assess spatial variability in species richness across the Greater Cape Floristic Region.
Access other South African biodiversity data
The South African national biodiversity Institute (SANBI) has an excellent GIS database with interactive mapping, biodiversity data, training, and legislation.
Past Activities
The Great Southern Bioblitz 2023 was an opportunity for all Southern Hemisphere countries to record organisms during spring and showcase our beautiful biodiversity to the world. The event is run by a grassroots network of keen citizen scientists from across the globe.
In a collaborative effort, NRF-SAEON, NRF-SAASTA, CTSC, GLOBE, and BioSCape hosted 170 students from 10 high schools in the Western Cape (6 from townships) to learn several data collection methods related to BioSCape. The group collected 30 Sea Surface Temperature measurements and ~20 cloud measurements. We also had 16 participants in our Train the Trainer session where the group collected an additional ~60 Biometry measurements (Tree Height, Tree Circumference, Land Cover) and ~30 Cloud GLOBE measurements.
BioSCape had our last Science Team Meeting online in June 2023.
BioSCape had a Science Applications Workshop in person in Cape Town in 2023. This workshop discussed the specific needs of practitioners (data users and decision-makers) to enhance the real-world application of data products and scientific results from BioSCape. The workshop report can be found here.
BioSCape had a fantastic presence at NASA's 2023 Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems (CC&E) Joint Science Workshop. This workshop takes research capability built from CC&E and develops it into decision making capability for conservation agents and land managers. The 2023 workshop included a half day of sessions related to the BioSCape project.
In December 2021 BioSCape had an online Parachute Science Workshop. This workshop overviewed challenges and outlined pivotal steps in preventing parachute science with a focus on projects related to remote sensing of the environment and biodiversity.
In June 2021 BioSCape had an online Networking Workshop. This introductory workshop covered developments within the initial phases of BioSCape. It included presentations by the project PIs, NASA, NSF, the University of Cape Town, South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON), South Africa National Parks, and CapeNature provincial Parks.
BioSCape data was collected under the appropriate permits and permissions from governmental and other agencies.