Historical & repeat photographs as a source of qualitative & quantitative biodiversity information

This presentation was given at UCT's Open Data Day on 6th March 2020.

The presentation outlines the utility of repeat photography in understanding changing landscapes, through citizen science.

Historical landscape photographs are scientifically valuable evidence of what landscapes looked like in the past and can be a useful source of biodiversity data in otherwise data-deficient geographic regions.

Acquiring repeats of historical photographs on broad geographic scales is possible through rePhotoSA, a collaborative citizen science project led by the Plant Conservation Unit and the FitzPatrick Institute at UCT, which hosts an open online repository of historical landscape images.