Advancing Adaptive Management in the Riverside East Solar Energy Zone

The Riverside East Solar Energy Zone is a vast area in southern California designated for large-scale solar development. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is charged with monitoring wildlife in this area to minimize the effects of the solar production on wildlife species. However, consistent monitoring of wildlife across vast spatial landscapes over time has proven to be a daunting challenge. This study investigates if cell phones can be used as a primary monitoring tool for documenting wildlife occurrence through time and space and develops data management and software that allow rapid analysis and reporting. The primary product of this effort is the open-source software package, called AMMonitor. This project is a collaboration between scientists with the USGS and the BLM. In a world confronting climate change and rapidly shifting land uses, cost- and time-effective methods for monitoring natural resources are critical to support scientifically informed management decisions. By combining remote data-collection methods with a streamlined data management and analysis, the AMMonitor software package supports the tracking of species occurrence, colonization, and extinction patterns through time, introducing the potential to place monitoring initiatives within an adaptive management (AM) framework.