Where To Start? A New Citizen Science, Remote Sensing Approach To Map Recreational Disturbance And Other Degraded Areas For Restoration Planning

This UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration highlights the capacity of restoration to mitigate trends in biodiversity loss and land degradation. However, many managers lack the tools they need to systematically and comprehensively identify degraded sites to prioritize restoration efforts given limited resources. We developed a novel, inexpensive, low-tech approach for training and engaging citizen scientists to identify recreational impacts and other degraded areas within a defined unforested area. The mapping process follows four phases: (1) Landscape scans by citizen scientists using Google Earth Pro imagery; (2) A second scan of all marked sites based on high resolution aerial photography; (3) Compilation of basic information about the degraded sites; (4) Addition of associated soil type and plant communities. In the 12,375 ha McDowell Sonoran Preserve (Scottsdale, Arizona), we detected 67 new sites not previously identified by land managers, using an estimated 305 citizen scientist hours and only 30 staff hours. Each site has accompanying information including distance from nearest access point, cause of degradation, and plant and soils detail. After completion, we conducted independent field visits of 33% of the detected sites and verified degradation in all cases. We found that the remotely sensed approach provided better perspective to accurately measure the scale and original source of degradation compared with field visits. The approach can be conducted over a short period of time using citizen scientists, allows managers to undertake landscape level restoration prioritization and planning, and, if repeated, can be used to monitor changes in degradation and restoration over time.