Ducks Unlimited using Site Mate
Ducks Unlimited Inc. (DU) is the world’s largest private, non-profit, waterfowl and wetland conservation organization. The fundamental challenge for Ducks Unlimited continues to be identifying the conservation investments that will yield the greatest return for waterfowl in the long term. To meet this challenge, DU invests in research to better understand the key habitat elements and environmental factors that influence duck populations.
In the northern Great Plains, DU works with the prairie grasslands and wetlands that are critical to North America’s waterfowl. These habitats are part of an intricately woven tapestry of our North American landscape and ultimately our global environment. Ducks and other waterfowl serve as indicator species for the health of these environments. |
Geographic information systems (GIS) and satellite imagery are critical tools for mapping and monitoring environmental change, for understanding the complex web of interactions and relationships between man and nature.
To properly classify the satellite imagery, sufficient and accurate ground truth data needs to be collected quickly as close to the image acquisition date as possible. In the past, DU has used several different types of GPS units to obtain the spatial location of the desired ground verification. Recently DU’s GIS researchers have been using PDA hand-held devices equipped with Farm Works CF GPS units and Site Mate software to collect both spatial locations and corresponding habitat characteristics.
Ducks Unlimited has recently completed a remote-sensing project classifying habitat types in central North Dakota. For the different land cover classes, PDAs were used in vehicles collecting data along rural roadways on a stratified travel route. The different classes were selected inside Site Mate from a customized user interface. Additionally, ATVs were used to sample and collect GPS points for different emergent wetland classes. Below are some images showing the ground collection efforts. |
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 With the proper ground truth data the desired accuracies in the final thematic product can be achieved. |
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In past projects, DU would collect the spatial location with a GPS unit and then, back in the office, join that data with other attribute data collected by hand or on paper. By using a PDA hand-held device equipped with Site Mate, we are able to efficiently tie the ground verification data with the corresponding spatial location—all in one pass.
DU has also benefited by using Farm Works CF GPS units in other research projects as well. The ongoing Duck Nesting Success Research project implemented the CF GPS units with outstanding results!
For more information on this research, please visit prairie.ducks.org, or feel free to contact Deric Morgando at dmorgando@ducks.org.