Harmonizing and integrating radar-based approaches for monitoring aerial biodiversity

Trillions of birds and insects use the airspace for key activities of their life cycle, such as daily foraging movements and seasonal migrations. Their movements link otherwise separated ecosystems, raise human-wildlife conflicts, and provide services and disservices that are relevant to human agriculture, economy, and health. Although the airspace is an essential habitat for a large proportion of the global biodiversity, aerial biodiversity is poorly monitored and largely absent from policy.  

Radars are an excellent tool to monitor aerial biodiversity, since they (often) monitor continuously and at a large scale, capturing detailed information such as intensity, timing and altitude. In HiRAD, we want to improve access, harmonization, visualization, and integration of biological data from small-scale and weather radars across Europe.