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Featured Presentations

Natasha Nahirnick (Ecofish Research): Mapping with confidence; delineating seagrass habitats using Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems (RPAS)

• Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems (RPAS) are valuable tools for mapping and monitoring seagrass habitats because of their acquisition flexibility, relatively low cost, and ability to capture very high-resolution imagery. However, seagrass habitats can be extremely difficult to image, particularly when submerged. Various environmental and site-specific factors interfere with the image quality outcomes, ultimately leading to mapping products that are less dependable. In this talk, we will explore the variables that impact the quality of RPAS imagery in coastal British Columbia, Canada, and other temperate regions, and discuss the optimal parameters in which to collect imagery to confidently map submerged seagrass meadows.
• Natasha Nahirnick is an environmental scientist with Ecofish Research Ltd. specializing in coastal and aquatic habitat mapping. Her experience includes extensive work with NGOs, First Nations, and academia mapping eelgrass, saltmarsh, and kelp habitats on the BC coast, using a variety of platforms including aerial photography, satellite imagery, and RPAS. Before joining Ecofish, her graduate research involved long-term eelgrass change assessment in the Salish Sea using historic aerial photography and identifying watershed land use and other anthropogenic stressors on the coastal environment.

Tara Blackman and Tulley Mackey (Mount Hood Environmental): Oregon Spotted Frog Habitat Suitability Monitoring in Central Oregon Wetlands

• Mount Hood Environmental is using UAV derived photogrammetry paired with on-the-ground vegetation surveys to map Oregon Spotted Frog suitable habitat. This data will be used for status and trend monitoring related to water use practices in the Deschutes watershed in central Oregon.
• Tara Blackman is a senior scientist at Mount Hood Environmental, specializing in aquatic ecology and fisheries research. Tara holds a M.S. in Fisheries Science from Oregon State University and has conducted ecological research throughout the Pacific Northwest and in Southern Chile. Her interests include life-history responses of salmonids to environmental disturbance and population dynamics across environmental gradients.
• Tulley Mackey is a fisheries biologist at Mount Hood Environmental and is currently earning a M.S. in Water Resources Science and Engineering from the University of Idaho. Tulley enjoys working with spatial data to assess aquatic habitats and inform restoration efforts.