Forest Disturbances and Ecosystem Services

Rio Alto Tamaya. Photo credit: D. Salisbury.

 The Amazon rainforest provides ecosystem services to 33 million people, including 1.5 million Indigenous people from 385 different groups, living within the biome boundary. The goals of this project are to understand how forest degradation, deforestation, and road building affect the ecosystem services provided by the hydrologic cycle in the Southwestern Amazon and to develop data and tools to improve sustainable development in the region.

Our team will work in the areas of Ucayali, Peru and Acre, Brazil to characterize changes in forest cover using remotely-sensed data and fieldwork, and attribute these changes in forest cover to localized changes in evapotranspiration (ET), soil moisture, humidity, and surface temperature. The effect-radius of these changes in forest cover (how far away these changes are felt) will be determined, and maps generated that highlight areas that have undergone changes in microclimatology and land-use. This information will be shared through trainings, fieldwork, and workshops with partner communities and universities. 

Our project will emphasize capacity strengthening of local indigenous and non-indigenous groups, as well as colleagues at CIAT and SERVIR Amazonia-Hub partner institutions such as ACCA-MAAP, and colleagues and students with current partners in the region.

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Products and publications

Products

Map of Road Proposals, National Parks, and Topography of the Sierra del Divisor Range, Peru-Brazil Borderlands. 
At the end of 2020 the official geodatabases of the two countries show the two road proposals reaching the international border in two separate locations not linking one to the other.
English version: scholarship.richmond.edu/geography-maps/21/
Spanish version: scholarship.richmond.edu/geography-maps/17/
Portuguese version: scholarship.richmond.edu/geography-maps/19/
Recommended Citation: Reygadas, Y., Salisbury, D. S. (2021). Map of Road Proposals, National Parks, and Topography of the Sierra del Divisor Range, Peru-Brazil Borderlands. Spatial Analysis Lab, University of Richmond. NASA SERVIR.

Publications

THE (Urichmond} TEAM

We have an amazing team of undergraduates working on our project. Their projects range from collecting training data from high-resolution satellite data to mapping and understanding the political ecology of newly built logging roads to analyzing trends in observational climate data to building user-friendly apps that will allow our stakeholders to understand deforestation and degradation in real time. 

Stephanie Spera

Project PI
​Assistant Professor of Geography & the Environment

David Salisbury

Project Co-I
Associate Professor of Geography & the Environment
David's research website can be found here.

Yunuen Reygadas

Postdoctoral Researcher
Yunuen has a PhD in Geographic Information Science (GIScience) from Texas State University.

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beth Zizzamia

GIS Operations Manager
Beth earned a BSc in earth system sciences from George Mason and an MSc  in structural geology from Montana State. She is an expert on spatial web products, relational database management, vector and raster analysis, and field data collection.

Anna Cheng, '21

Anna Cheng is a senior, majoring in philosophy. After graduation, she intends to travel and work for a few years before going back to school to learn more about applications of technical skills in the environmental science and sustainability fields. 

Virginia Sun, '21

Virginia Sun, a global studies major,  is interested in international development in Latin America and Africa. During her undergraduate studies, she studied abroad in Chile and Brazil for a year, and is interested in indigenous rights, peace and conflict resolution, and evidence-based development projects. 

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Riley Place, '22

Riley Place is a junior studying environmental science at the University of Richmond. Originally from Washington DC, Riley is passionate about conservation and sustainable development in the Amazon region of South America.

Anna Frisbie, '22

Anna is a junior double-majoring in biology and environmental studies.

LIndsey Barnard, '22

Lindsey is a junior majoring in global studies with a minor in mathematics.

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Tereza Hernadez, '23

Tereza is a sophomore considering a global studies major with a Latin American studies minor. Although originally from NOVA (northern VA), her family is Guatemalan. Her ethnicity makes her very interested in indigenous rights and all things about Latin America and beyond.

Elspeth Collard, '23

Elspeth is a sophomore who is likely majoring in Health Care Studies and minoring in Environmental Studies with a particular interest in how these two topics overlap. She is also fascinated by geography and the powerful messages it can be used to send, especially on projects like this. ​

McKenna dunbar, '23

McKenna is a results-oriented and goal-driven sophomore who is passionate about environmental law, sustainability initiatives, investment banking, and renewable energy developments. She is attaining a B.S. in Business Administration (concentration in International Business) and a B.A. in Environmental Studies.