Managing large-scale wildlife data using GIS

Great Elephant Census

by Joel Masselink

What is the Great Elephant Census?

How was GIS used to manage data?

Results + Impacts of GEC

What is the GEC?

coordinated aerial surveys of savannah elephant range

covering majority of their range

including parts of 20 countries

Need for GEC

current data for population status assessment across range

K.S. Gobush/ Save The Elephants, 2013

Ivory ban

Ivory sale to China

Need for GEC

current data for population status assessment across range

GEC implementation

a Paul G. Allen project

Vulcan Inc.

Elephants Without Borders (P.I)

GEC partners

Spatial data collection

observations

audio recorder

camera

Spatial data collection

flight parameters

GPS tracks logs

height above ground

ground speed

Spatial data processing

GIS Tasks

compile & process data

compile survey plan spatial data
normalize observation records + flight logs

Spatial data validation

Survey design

strata

transects

Spatial data validation

Survey data collection

flight track logs

observations records

tools used by GEC

GIS clients: ArcGIS + QGIS
GPS utilities: DNR Garmin + GPS Babel

tools built by GEC

open SQL db backend: PostgreSQL / PostGIS
Microsoft Excel template for normalizing raw data

Spatial data normalization

Spatial data conversion / management

OGR / GDAL

Python scripts

ogr2ogr -f "SQLite" E:\GIS\Projects\GEC_status.sqlite -progress PG:"server
dbname user password table"-nlt MULTIPOLYGON -nln GEC_survey_strata -lco -dsco
SPATIALITE=yes

Tools for database ingestion

SQL queries

Python

SELECT s.code as survey_code, st.name as stratum_name, count(st.id) as strata_count,
    ST_AREA(geography(ST_COLLECT(st.stratum_boundary))) / 1000000::double precision as strata_area_sqkm
FROM survey_stratum as st
INNER JOIN survey_survey as s on s.id = st.survey_id
GROUP BY s.code, st.id 
ORDER BY s.code asc;