Conference Agenda

Restoration of degraded ecosystems and protection of intact ecosystems are crucial actions to mitigate the impacts of global climate change and biodiversity loss. Earth observation (EO) data from satellites can be useful to evaluate the impact of restoration and conservation interventions and enable a wise allocation of resources. Unfortunately, practical knowledge of earth observation data and processing is often lacking among conservation and restoration stakeholders, and user-oriented tools integrating earth observation data processing and impact evaluation are currently missing.

In this demonstration, we present an open software toolset, implemented as an R package, for counterfactual impact evaluation of restoration and conservation actions. This toolset integrates acquisition and processing of open EO and other spatial datasets with the most appropriate impact evaluation designs depending on the users’ specification. The target audience includes NGOs, governments, restoration and conservation managers, funding bodies, and scientists. For all these target groups, this toolset can make standardization choices more transparent and facilitate reproducibility in the reporting of the impact of restoration and conservation actions.

This will be a hands-on demonstration. Participants can follow the demonstration shown by the organizers, but are encouraged to run analysis themselves on their own laptop (ideally with R, Rtools and RStudio installed – see https://cran.r-project.org/ and https://posit.co/download/rstudio-desktop/). Example datasets are provided in the R package for demonstration purposes, and participants will have the opportunity to test the toolset with their own dataset with guidance of the organizers. Participants will learn to use the main functionalities of the toolset and be able to provide feedback for further development of the toolbox.