Birdy Bunch

Inspiration:

Krystyna Hesser, our teammate, first inspired us in doing this project due to her family's background in Europe, specifically in Poland, and essentially it is an area where a majority of different birds use as a flight path during migration season. Furthermore, we were set on doing this project when Krystyna showed us the data available on the migration of birds (point data).

What it does:

Two interactive dashboards allows you to explore areas of vulnerability for Grus Grus as well as track flight patterns. The vulnerability dashboard is based on environmental factors such as temperature, land cover, air quality, precipitation, and proximity to humans, allowing researchers to identify areas of concern for these birds. The flight patterns dashboard allows researchers to gain insight and statistics on the paths tracked birds have taken. Along with the two dashboards, we created an app that allows researchers to input location data on tracked birds, and a survey form to log information on any new Grus Grus found.

How we built it:

We utilized a public dataset following tracked birds across Africa, Asia, and Europe, cleaned the data, then filtered it down to focus on data pertaining to Grus Grus. Using ArcGIS Pro, we created web layers and utilized polygons for the analysis of the location data. The data and feature layers were then transferred to the Dashboards app where we created an interactive dashboard. For data collection, we utilized the QuickCapture app to track the flight patterns of birds that are already in the dataset. For new birds, we created a Survey123 form to allow researchers to input data on a new, untracked bird quickly.

Challenges:

We ran into The challenges we faced largely stemmed from a desire of producing a high-quality product within a limited time frame and with a team that had a rather diverse background in specific expertise. The production of a meaningful vulnerability analysis consumed a significant amount of time, which meant that the development of our solutions for visualization and data collection was constructed utilizing low-code/no-code options instead of the utilization of API/SDKs. While this decision presented limitations on how we could design our solutions, it also meant that we could focus more attention to our geospatial analysis and lean more heavily on the holistic skills of the team.

Accomplishments that we're proud of:

One of the main accomplishments that we were proud of was being able to manipulate the thousands of bird data points into succinct feature layers that we were then able to utilize into interactive dashboards for the public to use. Aside from that, many of us weren't used to working with raster data, so it brought us a lot of challenges to work with it. However, through creative workarounds such as reclassifying the data and turning them into polygons, we were able to extract the data we needed from them in ArcGIS Pro in order to use them in ArcGIS Online. Besides GIS software, Isaiah used his Python skills to help clean the bird data and write scripts to condense the data in order for us to use it in ArcGIS Pro. Finally, Juliann utilized her UI/UX skills by working with QuickCapture and Survey123 by implemented the data into them and thus allowing the capability for researchers to then add in new data should they wish to.

What we learned:

One of the biggest things we learned was how to work collaboratively as a team while under pressure as well as improve our technical skills in certain Esri products such as ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, Dashboards, QuickCapture, and Survey123. Aside from our technical skills, we also learned how to communicate effectively with each other while at the same time keeping a fun atmosphere in which learning and mistakes were encouraged in order to succeed in the long run.

What's next for Birdy Bunch:

Our team hopes that our app is used by researchers/avian biologists in order to better track and locate the migration patterns of these birds. The long-term goal for this is to better analyze any location-based factors that could risk certain birds becoming endangered. Eventually, we would want to implement dedicated mobile and web applications that do not utilize low-code/no-code solutions.