Modernizing environmental data management for ecological research, management, and conservation at regional scales

Abstract

The recent surge in diverse, high‐resolution geospatial data—driven by advances in technologies such as GPS and remote sensing—has revolutionized the field of ecology, creating new opportunities for novel applications in wildlife management. However, the enormous volume and variety of available geospatial data, combined with the technical and logistical challenges of utilizing it, have made it difficult to leverage its full potential in wildlife management. Several platforms, such as Google Earth Engine (GEE) and Environmental‐Data Automated Track Annotation (Env‐DATA), have emerged to help address these barriers, but heavy coding requirements and limited support for customization have hindered applications at the regional scale. In this paper, we propose a scalable and accessible web Geographical Information Systems (GIS) system for archiving a curated geospatial library. The system is designed to support regional‐scale ecological research and management, and we illustrate with a case study focused on Wyoming and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). Our system integrates cloud‐optimized geospatial formats, object‐oriented storage, and open‐source tools to provide streamlined access to a geospatial library. It eliminates the need for local data storage, promotes reproducibility, and enhances collaboration among researchers and practitioners. By focusing on regional applicability, our system addresses common challenges in geospatial data access and infrastructure, offering a replicable model for storing and delivering these data in an accessible way to the scientific and applied research communities.