Austin Schuver

Tag: Conservation

  • Animating Maps to Show the Spread of Aquatic Invasive Species

    Invasive species threaten fish populations and water quality in lakes, rivers, and streams across America.

    For a project on invasive species awareness, I’ve drafted animated maps of the spread of invasive species across North America. Data comes from the USGS’s Nonindigenous Aquatic Species (NAS) map center.

    The process involves importing data into QGIS, exporting the map into Adobe Illustrator and creating each year as its own properly labeled layer. Organizing and renaming each layer, especially for invasive species that have spread throughout the US since the 1990s, is the most time-consuming step.

    After Illustrator, the layers are uploaded into Adobe After Effects for animating. Animating allows the “dots,” which are confirmed records of a species in a specific location, to visually spread across the continent.

    Stay tuned for the full and final video on preventing the spread of aquatic invasive species.

  • My Master’s Thesis: Agricultural Adaptation to Climate Change

    I graduated from the University of Montana this spring! Below, you can watch my thesis defense on adaptation in agriculture.

    https://youtu.be/57OjQmMId-8

    Apologies for no human faces, I thought Zoom would save at least my own!

    Thesis Abstract

    In Montana, climate change is projected to increase interannual variability and the severity of weather events like drought. To sustain agricultural production, farmers must adapt to climate change within a complex decision-making process responsive to a range of climate and non-climate stressors.

    This study explores how Montana farmers approach proactive and long-term adaptation, two types of adaptation which are not well studied, but are expected to be increasingly important for adapting to the impacts of climate change. To understand Montana farmers’ approaches to adaptation, I conducted 30 in-depth interviews with crop farmers across the state.

    Farmers explained how unpredictability in weather and markets fostered a lack of agency and the sense that proactive decisions were gambles. When asked about the utility of two forms of climate information designed to help make proactive decisions, three-month forecasts and mid-century projections, most farmers thought they lacked reliability and relevance. Instead, to buffer against short-term fluctuations and overcome a lack of agency, farmers prioritized long-term adaptations with short-term benefits. These findings suggest that improvements in climate information and agricultural policy could support farmers in pursuing proactive, long-term adaptations.

  • ‘Connectivity Conservation’ Published in Parks Stewardship Forum

    Big news: I had a photo-essay published in Parks Stewardship Forum!

    View the photo-essay

    This issue of PSF is dedicated to moving beyond fortress conservation and toward a conservation of connections.

    PSF is an online, interdisciplinary, open-access journal co-published by the University of California–Berkeley’s Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity and the George Wright Society.

    PSF’s mission: to explore innovative thinking and offer enduring perspectives on critical issues across the whole spectrum of place-based heritage management and stewardship.