Our Apalachicola OSPREY Program site on Flickr was begun in May 2010 in response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Our goal for this citizen science project, is to train and empower Gulf of Mexico coastal residents in monitoring and photo-documenting, with GPS coordinates, the pre-impact conditions of their local coastlines, and make that information available online in an easily searchable and shareable reference site. Our expectation is that this data collection will provide a baseline of reference for scientists involved in future studies and damage assessment. In the event that our coastal communities experience coastline impacts, we plan to also photo-document those, as well, if we can safely and legally do so. Videos will be posted and made publicly viewable, referenced by GPS coordinates, location name, and date.

Some of the currently uploaded photos were taken before the inception of Apalachicola OSPREY photo-monitoring program, so they do not all necessarily follow Natural Resource Data Assessment guidelines. However, most of the photos and videos were recorded along with GPS coordinates of the site. They go back as far as 2004 and were intended by the photographer, Robin Vroegop, as potential video plots to document coastal erosion.

These images are presented to provide a model for the NRDA-based type of photo-documentation that will be our goal in the OSPREY program, and how those images may be utilized.

Current plans call for creation of one "collection" of photos and videos for each of the sixteen ESI index quadrants in Franklin Co., FL. Within those "Collections" will be "sets" of videos organized by geographic place name and GPS coordinates. Each video will be titled with a reference to the location and ESI index, and tagged with decimal degree GPS coordinates as well as other searchable tags such as month, year, habitat type, appropriate ESI ranking, if applicable, and additional location /access information, if possible. If time permits, they will be added as placemarks to a google earth file as well.

It is our intention to make all these images and accompanying data available to the public and to scientists under a creative commons license of use.

WE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE JAMES A. GALLETTO www.naturescapes.net/portfolios/portfolio.php?cat=10046 FOR THE USE OF HIS INCREDIBLY FIERCE AND INSPIRING IMAGE OF AN AMERICAN OSPREY AS OUR BUDDY ICON AND LOGO IMAGE. This photo has had well-deserved recognition in an exhibition at the National Museum of Art.

This material contained in this site is generated and maintained in the public interest by trained volunteers. While we strive for accuracy in our content, our volunteers are citizen scientists and naturalists, and NOT professional scientists and researchers. Additionally, THE VIEWS EXPRESSED HERE ARE NOT THOSE OF THE APALACHICOLA RIVERKEEPER, nor is this site affiliated with the Apalachicola Riverkeeper as of May 4th, 2011.