HiRAD

Context

Trillions of birds and insects use the airspace and, through their movements, link otherwise separated habitats, communities, and ecosystems. They impact various ecological processes, raise human-wildlife conflicts, and provide services (pollination, seed-dispersal, pest control, nature’s contribution to people) and disservices (pathogen dispersal, agricultural damage) that are relevant to human agriculture, economy, and health. Quantifying their numbers and movements, and understanding the drivers of (changes in) their spatio-temporal distribution is key to preserving aerial diversity.

Although the aerial habitats are essential for a large proportion of the global biodiversity, they are poorly monitored and largely absent from legislation and policy. Monitoring aerial biodiversity remains a challenge due to the numbers of individual organisms involved and the large scale at which their movements take place. Fortunately, radar technologies provide opportunities to continuously measure the movements of animals through the air, which are often invisible to the human eye.

Main objectives

We will develop innovative research software tools that support the collection, harmonisation, visualisation, analysis, and integration of biological data from different existing radar systems, ranging from small-scale biological radars to weather radars across Europe. We will use automated radar systems to continuously monitor the aerial movements of birds and insects, providing detailed information on the intensity, timing, altitude, and spatial scale of mass movements for the full range of taxa and all individuals. These sensors can provide a quantification of animal fluxes and flight behaviours at unprecedented detail and scales.

Main activities

We will a) create tools to easily and freely access high-quality radar data, b) harmonise different biological data products from radars within and across national borders, c) improve the taxonomic classification of biological objects observed by radars, and d) create novel biodiversity monitoring products by integrating the information from the different radar systems. In proof-of-concept studies, we will identify large-scale spatio-temporal relationships, e.g. between land cover and insect and bird diversity and abundance.

We will engage with stakeholders from sectors as diverse as conservation, meteorology, wind energy, and aviation safety, to ensure that we create tools and products that can be used to resolve diverse societal challenges.