Integrating remote sensing and ground-based spectral analysis to investigate biodiversity of archaeological sites in Amazonia

There is growing evidence and awareness that human impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity are leading to significant implications for sustainability. Amazonia is a critically important biome in terms of: potential impacts of development (e.g. deforestation), sustainability of indigenous peoples and their livelihood, and sustainability of biodiversity and ecosystem services with global impact. Modern land uses such as urbanization, intensive agriculture or extensive conversion to pasture is already showing devastating effects on Amazonian biodiversity. Until recently, the Amazon was considered to be pristine forest, barely occupied by people in the past. Researchers have now come to agree that at least the riverine areas of the basin were densely occupied While there is keen awareness of contemporary anthropic effects, Amazonia is in fact a laboratory for investigation of long-term impacts of anthropic influence. Emerging technologies will shed light on ancient human footprints on biodiversity which in turn will help us to better understand current and future anthropic impacts and potentially develop mitigation strategies which will inform national and global efforts towards biodiversity conservation and sustainability. The overarching objective of this project is to implement and demonstrate a novel approach to investigation of anthropic impacts on biodiversity in the Amazonian rainforest. This will be achieved by developing a multidisciplinary team that includes remote sensing expertise, archaeologists, and plant biodiversity expertise. Our plan is to demonstrate the usefulness and power of integrating ground-based spectral analysis of vegetation (NIR - near infrared spectroscopy) with aerial survey data using NIR to develop a method for analysing local biodiversity that is scalable to much larger areas by remote sensing. This will enable analysis of the impact of past human activity on biodiversity, and it will also enable investigation of that human footprint across a larger landscape. The programme of work includes a UK inception workshop, a Brazilian workshop, and a field demonstration project. This project has grown out of scientific networks established under STFC/NERC Global Challenges Network on Bioinformatics and Environmental Omics. Networking activities through these programmes have also established an interface with the "Terra Preta de Indio Network" (TPInet: http://tpinet.org). The purpose of the present STFC Futures proposal is to consolidate a potential research network involving EOS and integrating across strengths at STFC RAL-Space (remote sensing), St Andrews (plant diversity and conservation), RBG Kew (plant diversity and conservation, remote sensing), Cardiff (TPINet)., and USP, Brazil (archaeology) to develop advanced remote sensing technologies for investigation of long-term anthropic impacts on Amazonian ecosystems.