During the Summer of 2022 we investigated the following research questions: (1) What plant communities were present pre-industrial agriculture? (2) What plant communities are present on fallowed/retired lands? (3) What is likely to recover with active vs. passive restoration? (4) How do abiotic factors and disturbance history influence this recovery? These questions are intended to explore the links between plant functional groups, fallowing, revegetation, and disturbance, and allow for the use of remote sensing techniques in the process.

This study aims to quantify and understand changes in agricultural abandonment under a variety of projected climate scenarios, its impacts on connectivity, and how future agricultural demand can be satisfied with these abandoned lands. A manuscript for this project is currently in production. Employer: emLab (Environmental Markets Lab, UCSB) and Conservation International, through a larger project called SPARCLE/SPARC (Spatial Planning for Climate Change: Land Use for Conservation, Agriculture, and Energy). The funding for this particular project comes from the Arnhold Fellowship.

The assignments included on this page are snippets of assignments that I submitted for ESM 270 Conservation Planning. The full assignments also included co-written lab reports from myself and a peer, of which only the summaries are included here. All maps below are my own, created with ArcGIS. Lab 4 Summary: Jaguars (Panthera onca) of the Talamanca-Osa region of Southern Costa Rica are experiencing habitat fragmentation from human land use. A Circuitscape and Linkage Mapper analysis of least cost paths and land use types in this area show that agricultural pastures and palm plantations are the largest threats to jaguars.

This class was intended to build a working knowledge of GIS theory and practice in a single quarter. GIS, or Geographic Information Systems, are used to visualize, analyze, and interpret geographic data. Three of my assignments for this class are displayed below. Assignment 2 This map reveals how sea-level rise will impact downtown Santa Barbara spatially and financially. Created with QGIS. Assignment 3 This map highlights the top ten potential sites for wind turbines in Santa Barbara County, based on a multi-criteria analysis.