Using geovisual analytics to enrich conservation science: a review of interactive visualization of wildlife and environmental spatial data across ecosystems

Abstract

ABSTRACT The size and complexity of spatial data in conservation science has been increasing dramatically as new tracking and monitoring technology has become more advanced and accessible. While the resulting high-resolution datasets have the potential to advance conservation science, new approaches in data management, analysis, and visualization are needed to realize time-sensitive on the-ground applications. Geovisual analytics (GVA) presents a novel approach to supporting interdisciplinary groups of conservation scientists, land managers, public and private stakeholders, and policymakers in thoughtful, timely, and data driven decision-making. The use of GVA in conservation science has emerged in the past decade, however its potential applications are under-explored and existing research is dispersed. Here we present a cross-disciplinary review of literature on the use of GVA in conservation science. Three key themes emerged: GVA as a decision support tool for land and wildlife management, movement analysis and/or monitoring of species and their potential threats, and GVA for tracking environmental condition and progress toward conservation goals. We then categorize existing GVA applications across both landscape and wildlife applications. We found that GVA has clear value in the conservation science community, however much work is left to be done to improve big data management and visualization.