Brown Bag Series: Case Study in Species Conservation

Can protected species and humans coexist within a subsistence agricultural landscape?
Wanting Peng, Ph.D. Candidate, Landscape Architecture, Tongji University, and Visiting Scholar, USC Spatial Sciences Institute

The conflict between species conservation and human livelihoods is profound and challenging, especially in developing countries that have high pressure on the large population living in protected areas. The spatial methods integrating fieldwork and spatial analysis techniques offer a method to integrate biophysical modeling, socioeconomic modeling, and the assessment of human wellbeing, and promises to be a useful decision support tool for resource managers.

This talk will present research using spatial analysis to model and explore the relationship between the threatened Black-necked Crane (Grus nigricollis), the physical environment, and human activities in a rural mountainous region of China to improve a sustainable planning and to better inform conservation decision making.