Dr. Sapana Lohani, Geospatial Data Scientist, Joins IIC

The IIC welcomes Sapana Lohani (she/her/hers), to the IIC team. Sapana has a PhD in Natural Resources from the University of Arizona, is a geospatial environmental scientist with special focus in spatial analysis and remote sensing.??She completed a Bachelors and a Masters degree in Environmental Science from the Tribhuvan University in her home country Nepal, after which she went to Thailand for her second Masters in Natural Resources Management from the Asian Institute of Technology. Sapana has worked in 5 different universities in the U.S, including those where she completed her PhD and post-doctoral projects. She will be teaching and expanding the IIC's work in Conservation GIS.

“We are delighted to welcome Dr. Sapana Lohani to the IIC.?She arrives as our Lead Geospatial Scientist and will be adding expertise in areas of GIS and quantitative analyses—two areas that are in high demand. Many of our projects with external conservation partners require these skills—hence Sapana will be teaching courses and mentoring research students to support these crucial areas. Sapana also arrives with a wealth of personal experiences in on-the-ground conservation, having worked on projects in Nepal, Thailand, and Cambodia and with partner organizations such as WWF and USAID. She adds so much to the IIC and I am looking forward to collaborating with her for many years to come.” -??IIC Faculty Director, John Swaddle.

Our paths in life can be many. In a brief interview, Sapana talked with us about how her paths converged to lead her to the Institute for Integrative Conservation.

[IIC] What are research areas are you most interested in?

[Sapana] My areas of interest are Landscape Level Environmental Modeling, Ecosystem Services, Watershed Management, Geospatial Analysis, ArcGIS & Remote Sensing, Natural Resource Economics, Traditional & Local Ecological Knowledge, Ecological Footprint.

[IIC] What is your perspective on teaching?

[Sapana] This will be my second-year teaching, so I still need to figure that out. I definitely want to be a good mentor. I want my students to remember me as someone who has inspired or guided them through some life changes for good.

[IIC] Can you give us an overview of your professional path in conservation, what kind of work you have done, where you have worked in the world?

[Sapana] Ecological modeling and using spatial & statistical techniques for natural resource conservation has always been my [primary] field of interest. My work evaluates interactions between human and environment; and contributes to making optimum management decisions.

My Bachelors and Masters degree from the Tribhuvan University in Nepal were both in environmental science. Since then, I have been interested in conservation and optimum use of resources. My Masters thesis work was in understanding biodiversity conservation (specifically one-horned rhinoceros), vegetation status, and socio-economic status of the communities living in the vicinity of the Chitwan National Park in Nepal. During my study in Nepal, I had visited many national parks and wildlife reserves in the country. Those trips along with practical tours had exposed me to area of resource conservation and their interactions with climatic and anthropogenic disturbances. I had visited many conservation areas in Nepal and learnt about the importance and challenges of conservation; and had a very strong exposure on role of communities residing close to such conservation areas.

My second Masters from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand provided me knowledge and experiences in natural resource management in diverse environments. My thesis was in assessing socio-economic services and uses of watershed under traditional forest management practices. I performed questionnaire survey in a remote village in Nepal at a catchment level. I have strong inclination towards local and traditional knowledge about natural resources management.

For my doctorate degree from the University of Arizona in the US, I used spatial techniques to evaluate ecosystem services (including hydrological services) with respect to climatic and other human-induced land management disturbances in rangelands in south-eastern Arizona. Since my doctorate, I have been interested in applications of the ArcGIS and remote sensing imageries to study social-ecological interactions in various ecosystems.

My post-doctoral research experience at the University of Missouri was in cropland watersheds to evaluate the effectiveness of Soil Vulnerability Index (SVI) in identifying croplands that are inherently vulnerable to runoff and leaching. I used geospatial data to identify potentiality of use Soil Vulnerability Index at various croplands in the US to identify areas prone to runoff and leaching range from using it in slopy watersheds to very flat areas with varying soil types.

My second post-doctoral research position was with the Wonders of Mekong project (with University of Nevada and Utah State University). I used the remotely sensed landsat images to understand the forest loss in Lower Mekong Basin in South East Asia over a period of 25 years and evaluated the potential causal factors for this forest loss over different geographical conditions – and I did it using publicly available datasets – that is also a plus point that we can use publicly available dataset and perform our analysis.

Before joining the IIC, I worked for an NSF EPSCoR-funded project at the University of Montana. I was responsible on developing a geodatabase of social datasets in Montana and Nebraska, such that it can be used to understand spatial and temporal trends of adaptive capacity to address future regime shifts and other human-environment challenges. This position was a great experience in understanding the human dimension to ecological transitions. I have strong inclination towards local and traditional knowledge about natural resources management – the local knowledge in resources conservation and management is a huge strength on its own. So far, I have worked in diverse ecosystems – rangelands, croplands, riverine ecosystems.

[IIC]?Can you describe a particularly important event or inspiration that led you work in biodiversity conservation?

Not one, there are many. But I would like to remember my mentor Dr. Pralad Yonzon, who was the founder of the Resources Himalaya Foundation, and his work on securing nature in the Himalayas. Having taken a course with him and hearing him talk about Red Pandas, conservation, resources, or any stories from his field works always inspired me to work in biodiversity conservation.??I had been associated with the Resources Himalaya Foundation for my Masters research on understanding socio economic status of the communities living in the buffer zone area of Chitwan National Park and how this affected the conservation of one-horned rhinoceros. My interest to work with and work for the communities had developed long time back then.?

[IIC] What led you to be specifically interested in geospatial technologies?

[Sapana] I feel geospatial data science is a huge plus point in conservation. When I look at conservation issues, I see those at a larger scale, (larger meaning bigger than field scale, or experimental setup). So, the remote sensing data that is taken from a broader perspective gives a totally different meaning to the same topic.

Also, when we work in conservation programs, the connection to real physical world is very important. The conservation problem or the conservation success is very specific to that particular geographical location. It’s true that a lot of other factors also affect conservation but the geographical information at that location matters conservation at the most.

[IIC] What interests you about working with the IIC?

[Sapana] I am a huge believer of “Knowledge and Action” coming together. With the knowledge and expertise that I have, and I can get help from, I like being experimental about decision making (not to the extent that it would harm anything) but to the point that any conservation and management decision making can be tested, corrected (if not good enough), re-implemented and updated whenever required.

My position with the IIC gives me space to contribute on bringing the knowledge, experience, and action together by working with the local communities utilizing and learning from their traditional knowledge. On top of that share this knowledge as well as the journey of getting to the success story with young generation such that they won’t be too afraid of taking risk and trying something new.?

After all those years of academic and post-doctoral experiences, I feel confident enough to contribute as a bridge between research institutions (doing research or preparing students) and community applications (organizations); and I feel IIC can guide me the best in that contribution.

We at the IIC, have had the opportunity to work with Sapana over the last month since her relocation to Williamsburg. We are so pleased to have her on the IIC Team. We are excited for W&M students, faculty and staff to get to know her, for our conservation partners to begin working with her, and for the biodiversity conservation opportunities we collectively have with her on our team. Welcome Sapana, to the IIC, to William & Mary, and to Williamsburg, VA!