Meteorological Data Policies Needed to Support Biodiversity Monitoring with Weather Radar

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Documents

  • Fulltext

    Final published version, 19 MB, PDF document

  • Judy Shamoun-Baranes
  • Silke Bauer
  • Jason W. Chapman
  • Peter Desmet
  • Adriaan M. Dokter
  • Andrew Farnsworth
  • Hans van Gasteren
  • Birgen Haest
  • Jarmo Koistinen
  • Bart Kranstauber
  • Felix Liechti
  • Tom H. E. Mason
  • Nilsson, Cecilia
  • Raphael Nussbaumer
  • Baptiste Schmid
  • Nadja Weisshaupt
  • Hidde Leijnse

Weather radar networks have great potential for continuous and long-term monitoring of aerial biodiversity of birds, bats, and insects. Biological data from weather radars can support ecological research, inform conservation policy development and implementation, and increase the public’s interest in natural phenomena such as migration. Weather radars are already used to study animal migration, quantify changes in populations, and reduce aerial conflicts between birds and aircraft. Yet efforts to establish a framework for the broad utilization of operational weather radar for biodiversity monitoring are at risk without suitable data policies and infrastructure in place. In Europe, communities of meteorologists and ecologists have made joint efforts toward sharing and standardizing continent-wide weather radar data. These efforts are now at risk as new meteorological data exchange policies render data useless for biodiversity monitoring. In several other parts of the world, weather radar data are not even available for ecological research. We urge policy makers, funding agencies, and meteorological organizations across the world to recognize the full potential of weather radar data. We propose several actions that would ensure the continued capability of weather radar networks worldwide to act as powerful tools for biodiversity monitoring and research.

Original languageEnglish
JournalBulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Volume103
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)E1234-E1242
ISSN0003-0007
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
©2022 American Meteorological Society

    Research areas

  • Animal studies, Biosphere-atmosphere interaction, Ecology, Economic value, Policy, Radars/Radar observations

ID: 316062347