[Miller-McCune - 13 May 2010 by Enrique Gili] There's an app for that: Scientists and park resource managers have joined forces to create a mobile application to help locate and eradicate harmful non-native plants found in environmentally sensitive public areas. Cell phone users not content to text and chat can put their minutes to good use for the National Park Service. Resource managers working in national parks have a new tool in their arsenal to monitor and control invasive weeds. The Center for Embedded Networked Sensing lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, have joined forces to create a mobile application to help locate and eradicate harmful non-native plants found in environmentally sensitive public areas.
Commonly referred to as apps, mobile applications have turned handsets into personal information managers with enough whiz-bang technology to make a ’60s James Bond villain gasp. The ability to record and document information has transformed cell phones into valuable tools for sharing information among peers and social networks.
“What’s Invasive” is an app designed to help rangers locate invasive plants with an assist from amateur naturalists. Nature lovers will be able to identify invasive plants and share that information with park staff. Two full-time park employees dedicate their time to eradicating weeds.
The app can be downloaded to iPhone or Android handsets, enabling park visitors to snap photos, log the location and automatically send files to the “What’s Invasive” server. The app identifies a hit list of the worst offenders — six highly invasive weeds that need to be eradicated.
“What’s Invasive” is not the only app under development at CENS meant to engage people with the natural world. “Smart phones are making it much easier to collect data and upload with the push of a button; it’s kind of revolutionary,” said principal investigator Eric Graham.
In the future, Graham hopes information will flow both ways. He wants to build interactive tools directing park visitors to little known or underutilized sections of the 153,000-acre park, places where little information has been gathered on invasive weeds. That, in turn, will make the database more valuable for land managers. “I would love to get people getting involved in the modeling,” he said.
CENS plans to partner with National Park Service officials nationwide. Authorized personnel can create a park-specific weed list. Once uploaded to the CENS server, the end user can then enter their park location, download the list, and go for a stroll. Testing of the app has begun in California’s Channel Islands National Park and Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., among others.
