Environmental observatory of sensitive habitats, using pleiades HR data, contributing to biodiversity protection: Case of the common hamster in Alsace, France

Within the context of insuring the long-term viability of the common hamster populations in France, the French Ministry of Environment turns to Earth Observation (EO) and SERTIT, a valorization service specialized in the production of geoinformation from remote sensing data, to analyze and monitor the pressures exerted on the rodent. Landcover analysis and habitat characterization are now annually performed using very high resolution satellite Pleiades imagery acquired at the end of hamster´s hibernation period, highlighting the threats to the rodent in the area and the positive effects of the species conservation actions. Through the spatial analyses of these cartographic results, favorable crop density indicators are derived providing an overview of biotopes connectivity. This operational monitoring, today in the scope of the National Action Plans for hamsters´ conservation, confirms the usefulness of EO images in biodiversity conservation, and in particular of submetric data such as Pléiades HR improving the analysis accuracy.