Fort Hood Project

Mapping and Remote-sensing

The Nature Conservancy maintains the biological GIS database for Fort Hood, including endangered species and their habitat, fire management, and karst features.  We are working with newly developed technologies to find new ways to detect and map endangered species habitat, including LIDAR (Light Image Detection and Ranging).  LIDAR is a remote-sensing technology which gives a three-dimensional picture of the ground and vegetation, allowing managers to assess the structure of the vegetation, which in turn gives clues about its usefulness to different species.  On Fort Hood, Conservancy scientists, in cooperation with researchers from the US Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) and the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), have used LIDAR to locate and map black-capped vireo habitat.