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GPS IN BIOLOGICAL MONITORING AND RESEARCHThere is a great variety of GPS available, and most will do a great job at getting your position. These are websites where you can get comparative prices: For reviews, you should just Google "handheld GPS" and read a few sites. This varies by the month. After you find out what you want, for finding compatative prices, you can try http://www.nextag.com and request handheld gps. That lists hundreds of them from dozens of shops with the lowest prices. Also try http://amazon.com. Accuracy The accuracy of most cheap hand-held systems in sufficient for most biological monitoring and research uses. Of course, the producers like to sell you more expensive models, so I expect that they list higher accuracies for their more expensive models than for their cheaper models. In order to get the highest accuracy possible from your equipment consider this:
When using external biological monitoring or research data, be aware of their inaccuracies. Before 2005 hardly anybody used a GPS and it is probably safe to say that before 2007 or 2008 few scientists used a GPS. Often, non-georeferenced biological monitoring or research data, nowadays, have been given a position based on a known location, which usually is a geographic range or protected area. Such data may refer to a specific known location in that area or the central point in the area. Hardly ever do those positions reflect the correct georeference of the data itself. Since people started using GPS units, many have used them inaccurately in many ways. When doing biological monitoring or research, some people only take a position once and then move about in the study area. This may particularly be the case in dense forested areas where GPS readings are poor or absent. Particularly when monitoring or inventoring, ornothologists are dealing with a dilemma. As they are observing birds, they have to write down their observations at a very high speed, as new observations are coming in continuously and often in questions of minutes or less. They continuously move towards the newly heard or seen exiting bird in very random directions. It is impossible to write down the name, observation details and GPS reading all at once. So the postions are always an approximation. Continuous GPS streams may help pindown the location more precisely. But wildlife data in general deal yet with another problem: the GPS location refers to the position of the observer and not to the location of the datum. Particularly soaring birds may be as far away as a km and at completely different elevation from the observer. GIS people always tell field observers that they should record how they have made the observation, but you know what? Most people who thell you that, don't even know how to hold a binocular and have never identifield a plant or filled out a fieldform. If you go by strict digital protocols, you get hardly any data at all and your biological monitoring or research programme becomes so time consuming and costly that it will never be carried out at all. So be practical and make wise compromises between accuracy and efficiency. |
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