In response to the Deep Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Cornell University is awarded a RAPID grant to develop information infrastructure that enhances our ability to provide information on the impact of the oil spill. The project uses Internet and information technologies to engage volunteers in providing critically needed data to assess the impact of the oil spill on wildlife and the environment through time. The Biodiversity Tracker will expand the capabilities currently provided by eBird (www.ebird.org), which uses a network of volunteers to survey beaches and marshes for birds. These data are displayed on real-time, interactive maps showing locations of reported birds in relation to current and forecasted oil slick locations. Expanded capabilities will include online data forms and maps to collect and display information on oiled birds, other wildlife affected by the oil spill, and beach conditions; outreach support to engage more participants; and open access to all data through the Avian Knowledge Network (www.avianknowledge.net) and DataONE (dataone.org).
The oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico will affect the region's biodiversity and ecology for years to come. Understanding this impact requires documenting the spill's effects on wildlife and the environment throughout the entire region, yet traditional biodiversity monitoring and inventorying approaches are inadequate to gather the vast amounts of data needed. The Gulf Coast Oil Spill Biodiversity Tracker engages citizen-science participants in gathering these data and makes the information publicly accessible through interactive online maps and databases. These data will enable quick responses for scientific and conservation efforts and will provide a fundamental data resource needed to monitor ongoing impacts from the disaster.
NSF support to eBird (http://ebird.org) allowed the development of an adaptable infrastructure to collect data on bird and oil occurrence, and display these results in a mash-up that can be used as a decision support tool. NSF funding also allowed us to expand outreach efforts resulting in the largest number of checklist submissions, observations and number of participants ever recorded in eBird for the Gulf Coast states. EXPANDED eBIRD ONLINE DATA ENTRY FORMS: We greatly modified the online data entry forms in eBird to record information on beach conditions, and record the number of individuals where oil was detected. This was the largest and most comprehensive change we have made to the eBird data entry in the ten years of the project. Data entry is now significantly faster for users, with the entire data entry process taken from six steps to three. There were also significant changes to the backend database that made it much easier to add new protocols for a broader array of scientific questions. Already these infrastructure improvements have allowed us to bring the ability to record information on breeding behavior. Our partner in Chile (Red de Observadores de Chile) is using eBird to run a breeding bird atlas for Chile – the first breeding bird atlas for any country in South America. eBIRD GULF SPILL BIRD TRACKER We developed visualizations that documented the occurrence of high priority species of birds and linked them with current and forecasted locations of the oil slick (Figure 1). These mashup visualizations are applications that combine data and functionality that includes bird observations from eBird, NOAA satellite imagery and Google interactive mapping capabilities. The eBird Gulf Spill Bird Tracker brings together eBird observations collected by birdwatchers with information from NOAA, NOAA-NESDIS on the current and forecast oil slick for the next 72 hours. By clicking on the icons one can see how many individuals were seen, when and by whom. These visualizations can be used as decision support tools to coordinate responses to areas where concentrations of birds occur that could be affected, as well as providing an intuitive interactive visualization for the public to explore the impact on biodiversity from the oil spill. The technology developed here may be used for any region on earth, with only minor technical adjustments for the region covered. This mashup has been removed from eBird since oil is no longer visible to satellite imagery. In the event of future oil spills, we will able to deploy this functionality to any new oil spill in where data from eBird, NOAA, NOAA-NESDIS is relevant with relatively minor changes. OUTREACH EFFORTS TO ENGAGE PARTICIPANTS We began a focused effort on outreach and engagement of participants in the Gulf Coast beginning during the summer of 2011. eBird staff visited all states in the Gulf Coast region (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida as well as Georgia given the number of birdwatchers who travel from Georgia to the Gulf Coast). eBird and the Lab’s Conservation Programs were also featured in the news (CNN, New York Times, NPR, ABC, CBS). Outreach efforts and new functionality highlighted above resulted in rapid growth in participation. It appears that we will gather roughly twice as many records in 2012 as we did two years ago. For instance, in May 2012 eBird collected 4,285,253 records compared to 3,037,629 in 2011 and 2,111,469 in 2010. ADDITIONAL BROADER IMPACTS NSF support has been critical to making eBird become one of the largest datasets on biodiversityin the world. eBird is the largest single data provider to GBIF and eBird data are being used in a variety of other publications and reports. The 2011 State of the Birds Report relied upon eBird data to demonstrate the importance of public lands in bird conservation. In July and August of 2012, we received and fulfilled dozens of requests for eBird data from a wide variety of federal and state agencies, research universities, and NGOS. Among them were the Bureau of Land Management, National Phenology Network, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U. S. Forest Service, U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development, U.S. Geological Survey, United Nations Environment Program World Conservation Monitoring Centre, University of California, University of Illinois, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Nature Conservancy.
