Scientists from the Colorado Natural Heritage Program completed their second of three field seasons last week. While the 2019 field season focused on private lands and lower elevation ecosystems, the 2020 field season focused on higher elevation subalpine and alpine habitats.
The scientists collected data on vegetation richness and cover as well as availability of forage and level of browse at 51 randomly selected points throughout the Roaring Fork Watershed. The team will spend the coming months processing that data and feeding it into the machine learning algorithm that uses remote sensing imagery to extrapolate the data collected on the ground across the nearly million-acre watershed.
While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique set of challenges related to travel logistics, the field team adhered to strict safety protocols. While the data collection phase of the Study was originally intended to last only two field seasons, the team still managed to surpass the number of plots they set out to collect this season under the pandemic-limited circumstances.
The 2021 field season will focus on rounding out both high and low elevation sample sites as well as investigating how well the draft habitat quality maps match up with conditions on the ground.
Here is a sampling of sites visited during the 2020 field season:
