Louisiana’s coast is home to rich and diverse biodiversity—and is threatened by intense storms on top of a backdrop of steady land loss. With limited dollars to invest in conservation, restoration, and resilience efforts, understanding where wildlife is located helps to prioritize where restoration benefits will be greatest. To monitor avian habitat use, Louisiana and its partners have routinely taken photos from aircraft flying over coastal habitat areas to identify bird nesting colony locations and other natural features.

Your challenge: Design an innovative solution that helps wildlife resource managers monitor wildlife habitat from an archive of over 400,000 aerial images.

Potential solution areas include:

• AI/ML solutions that detect wildlife and nests from aerial imagery.
• Updated geospatial workflows that improve georeferencing efficiencies and provide insights about species abundance and richness.
• Apps that incorporate citizen scientists to help assess and communicate restoration and resilience project benefits.
• Other creative uses of the data to extract insights about vegetation, sediment, shorelines, and other features of interest.