BioSCape, a multinational research project funded by NASA and co-led by CITRIS at UC Merced campus Director Erin Hestir, has demonstrated that Earth’s biodiversity can be monitored and measured from space.
Three aircraft flew over the Greater Cape Floristic Region — one of the most biodiverse places on the planet — to collect a broad range of images. That data, combined with fieldwork by a large team of scientists from the United States and South Africa, provides a comprehensive look at the region’s life systems.
“This was NASA’s first ever biodiversity-focused campaign,” Hestir said. “We successfully hit all our measurement targets, and the data collected are contributing to novel techniques and methods to be able to monitor biodiversity from space across the globe. It’s a lot of exciting science.”