Data for "The importance of view shed in nest site selection of a ground-nesting shorebird"
For information: dcatlin@vt.edu, reference viewshed project
For full information, please see the publication PONE-D-24-50327
The following describes the data included here:
"We quantified the viewshed at nests and unoccupied, random points for 2015–2020. In each year, we generated four random points for every one nest using the ‘Create Random Points’ tool in ArcGIS Pro (Esri, Inc.). Random points were constrained to be within pixels classified as dry sand and >30 m away from the nearest random point. We used the ‘Viewshed’ tool in ArcGIS Pro to classify pixels as visible or not visible from an observation point given visual obstructions surrounding it. We calculated viewshed from the perspective of an incubating plover’s eye height (6 cm), and for the surrounding landscape we used ground elevation and classified vegetation (15-cm resolution). To estimate vegetation height, we used the sampled vegetation heights in a logarithmic regression to estimate annual median height for 2015–2020 and added those height values uniformly to the ground elevation for pixels that were classified as vegetation. We used the above-ground level settings within the ‘Viewshed’ tool to establish viewshed conditions based on an incubating plover’s ability to see predators. The above-ground level setting classifies each 15-cm pixel by whether an object ≥ a specified height would be seen by the plover given the landscape features."