Item No. 1 of 1

INVESTIGATOR: Zheng, H.; Zhou, QI, .

PERFORMING INSTITUTION:
UNIV OF NORTH DAKOTA
GRAND FORKS, NORTH DAKOTA 58201

ASSESSMENT ON THE HABITAT QUALITY AND COST-EFFECTIVENESS OF POLLINATOR ENHANCEMENT: ROADSIDES VS. CP42: AN INTEGRATED REMOTE SENSING, IMAGE DETECTION, AND ECONOMICS APPROACH

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: To improve the quantity and quality of the pollinator habitat, 7 million acres of land were targeted for restoring or enhancing by 2020 through Federal actions and public/private partnerships. In addition to the traditional land conservation programs such as Pollinator Habitat Practice CP42, strategic management on public roadsides may provide valuable forage resources and contribute to the pollinator conservation efforts. However, we know little about the current status, floral coverage and abundance of the roadsides due to lack of research tools. This project will evaluate the current capacity, habitat quality, and cost-effectiveness of pollinator habitat enhancement by focusing on two strategies: roadside rights-of-way vs. the on-going CP42 practice. We propose to: 1) use remote sensing techniques to identify the spectral characteristics of flower patches validated with data collected from field work to quantify the floral coverage in grassland and pollinator habitat enrolled in the CRP; 2) quantify the current abundance of forage resources on roadsides by conducting detailed road surveys to collect imagery data on flower abundance and estimate flower percentages through image classification and detection techniques; 3) collaborate with the ND Department of Transportation on the impact of ditch management on forage resources; and 4) assess the cost effectiveness and provide policy recommendations of incorporating roadsides as an alternative habitat enhancement and compare the results to the current CRP pollinator habitat practice CP42. Our innovative approach of combining field/road surveying with cutting edge technologies such as remote sensing and image detection can expand the data capacity and advance the analytical skill at scales that have not been tackled before. The proposed project are aligned with the program requirement "Development and evaluation of innovative tools and management practices that would likely adopted by stakeholders to ensure healthy pollinators".

OBJECTIVES: The interdisciplinary team will develop a suite of tools to achieve theproposed objectives:1) use remote sensing techniques to identify the spectral characteristics of flower patches validated with data collected from field work to quantify the floral coverage in grassland and pollinator habitat enrolled in the CRP; 2) quantify the current abundance of forage resources on roadsides by conducting detailed road surveys to collect imagery data on flower abundance and estimate flower percentages through image classification and detection techniques; 3) collaborate with the ND Department of Transportation on the impact of ditch management on forage resources; and 4) assess the cost effectiveness and provide policy recommendations of incorporating roadsides as an alternative habitat enhancement and compare the results to the current CRP pollinator habitat practice CP42.The ultimate goal of this proposed research is to identify successful habitat enhancement strategies to support pollinators in intensively managed agricultural landscapes with both environmental and economic criteria.