Over a million species face extinction, highlighting the urgent need for conservation policies that maximize the protection of biodiversity to sustain its manifold contributions to people’s lives. Here we present a novel framework for spatial conservation prioritization based on reinforcement learning that consistently outperforms available state-of-the-art software using simulated and empirical data.
Over recent decades, community-based environmental monitoring (often called "citizen science") has exploded in popularity, aided both by smartphones and rapid gains in computing power that make the analysis of large data sets far easier.
Creating large-scale marine protected areas (MPAs) can be a powerful way for governments to safeguard entire ecosystems. But the success of those MPAs in delivering conservation benefits depends on effective management.
Humid tropical forests, vital in global efforts to limit rising temperatures, are under threat as a result of changes in land use and climate.
Scientists have developed a new way to model and map the health of coral reef ecosystems using data collected on the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation’s Global Reef Expedition.
The Atlas of Global Surface Water Dynamics created by the European Commission's Joint Research Center (JRC) illustrates the changes in the Earth's lakes, rivers and wetlands over time.
Recent ecological research used Instagram posts to analyze the preferences of visitors to natural areas around the world. Researchers deduced the activities and feelings that people associated with different environments, including Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.