Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Nebraska
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Integrating photography with science is a dynamic approach for communicating research, and is an innovative method for extracting data. Conservation photography has been implemented and recognized as a communication tool for science and an influential means of sustaining and managing natural resources. Time-lapse photography is part of this emerging field and capable of conveying visual information of what is occurring within a system. Water scarcity is a global issue, with a leading example happening and developing in the Great Plains of Nebraska. The central Platte River basin hosts a convergence of uses, including irrigation for agriculture, power production, public municipality supplies, and critical habitat for numerous species. In collaboration with Michael Forsberg and Michael Farrell’s Platte Basin Timelapse project, this study aims to explore innovative approaches in the realm of science communication by combining time-lapse photography with remotely sensed ecological and phenological data. Water quality measurements and bioacoustics of bats, frogs, and birds will be integrated with time-lapse series to visually identify temporal and spatial variability patterns. Features will be extracted from the images to see if photographic attributes are correlated with water quality or call phenology.