Remote Sensing & Raster Imagery Page 1

(ECP and CTSP members, sites of interest for mapping/GIS, scholarly papers and ESRI Conference Proceedings, and sites with public conservation and GIS data for downloading)

Sites of interest for mapping/GIS

(Legend: CTSP sites are coded "c" plus the year of the grant, (cs=software, cm=mac), ECP grantees are coded "e". Many groups, especially newer grantees, do not yet have their own sites and are colored green. Other new groups may be described or supported by other sites)

Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). (Information Contact: Jim Closs (closs@killians.gsfc.nasa.gov)) "Gateway to over 900 free Earth science data products and services" "At present, EOSDIS manages data from NASA's past and current Earth science research satellites and field measurement programs, providing data archiving, distribution, and information management services... will provide scientists and other users a broad range of desk top services from 9 science data centers - known as the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs). SEARCH.

Earth Resources Observation Systems Data Center (EROS). (EROS Data Center, 47914 252nd Street, Sioux Falls, SD 57198-0001 Tel: 800-252-4547 Tel: 605-594-6151 Email: custserv@edcmail.cr.usgs.gov) "Data collection and distribution are the business of the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Earth Resources Observation Systems (EROS) Data Center, or the EDC. Besides handling data from several series of satellites, the EDC archives more than 8 million photographs taken from airplanes. The EDC's huge and growing base of earth science information — the world's largest — is used by scientists at the EDC itself, within the private sector, and at government institutions and universities around the globe." SEARCH.

EROS Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (EDC DAAC) (EDC DAAC User Services, EROS Data Center, 47914 252nd St, Sioux Falls, SD 57198-0001 USA tel:605-594-6116 email: edc@eos.nasa.gov.) "..established as part of NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) initiative to promote the interdisciplinary study and understanding of the integrated Earth system. Access to land processes data, including satellite- and aircraft-acquired data stored in the EDC DAAC's archives, plays an important role in promoting such study and understanding. Products: Global 1KM AVHRR Data, Landsat Pathfinder Data, Global 30 Arc-Second Elevation Data Set, SIR-C: Survey Data, Precision Data Inventory, Educational CD-ROM, Global Land Cover Characterization."

EROS Data FTP Site. During the upcoming year, the EROS Data Center will be providing file transfer protocol (FTP) access to a variety of USGS digital data sets. The following is a list of each data set, a link to data examples, a hyperlink to user guide information, and a list of the methods available for transferring the data using FTP.

The Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis, Rutgers U. (Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing & Spatial Analysis, Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences Building, Cook College, Rutgers University, 14 College Farm Road, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, 08901-8551 TEL:(732) 932-1582 FAX:(732) 932-2587 email: webboy@crssa.rutgers.edu.) "GlobalARC CD-ROM Database: The GlobalARC CD-ROM Database is for use with ArcInfo (version 6.0 or higher), ArcView (version 2.0 or higher), and ERDAS IMAGINE (version 8.0 or higher) software and provides global and regional scale data to scientists, educators, and government agencies for environmental analysis...GlobalARC contains 84 themes and a total of 147 raster layers (Grids) with cell resolutions of 4'48" or finer...Data files on GlobalARC include global elevation, bathymetry, coral reef distribution, major watersheds/mountains/rivers, soils, seasonal surface albedo, monthly precipitation/temperature, 5-year average monthly sea-surface temperature, vegetation types, ecosystem complexes, biomass productivity, phytoplankton/zooplankton productivity, fisheries productivity, agricultural productivity, national political boundaries, urban cover, Gross National Product, acid rain, desertification, tropical forest destruction, safe drinking water availability, tropical storms, winter gales, and many other specific themes....Projects: Global GRASS and GlobalARC CD-ROMs:, Global GIS data from CRSSA and USA-CERL, GPS for Field Crop Monitoring/IPM, Mapping Land Use/Land Cover for the NJ Council on Affordable Housing, Dian Fossey Gorilla Project, GIS and Remote Sensing for Regional Archaeology: Burgundy, France, NJ Scenic Highways, New Jersey Environmental Spatial Database, NJ Spatial Data Clearing House, New Jersey State Mapping Advisory Committee, NASA funded USDAC consortium home page, Giselle: GIS over the World Wide Web, Visit CRSSA's first VRML site, New Jersey / NASA Radar Image Archive. SEARCH.

NASA Landsat Program (NASA Ames Research Center, Earth Science Division, Mail Stop 245-4, Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000 email: esd@gaia.arc.nasa.gov CONTACT: Ed Sheffner - Cal. State Univ. Monterey Bay/Ames Research Center esheffner@mail.arc.nasa.gov) is the longest running enterprise for acqusition of imagery of the earth from space. The first Landsat satellite was launched in 1972. The next in the series, Landsat 7, is scheduled for launch in May, 1998. The instruments on the Landsat satellites have recorded millions of images, These images, archived in the United States and at Landsat receiving stations around the world, are a unique resource for global change research and other applications. Landsat data have been used extensively in agriculture and geology, global change science, education and national security. See Access to Land Satellite Data on the Internet. SEARCH.

Remote Sensing Research Unit (RSRU) UC Santa Barbara. (Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060 tel: (805) 893-3845 fax: (805) 893-3703 email: rsru@geog.ucsb.edu) "Dr. John E. Estes, founder and director since its inception in 1970, directs three staff members and five graduate students in various research projects. These projects currently cover a wide range of fundamental and applied topics in advanced image analysis, large spatial databases, accuracy assessment, ecosystem analysis and modeling, land use and land cover mapping, population and demographic analysis, agricultural studies, coastal zone research, marine pollution monitoring, and endangered species habitat mapping and analysis." LINKS.

University of Minnesota- Remote Sensing Laboratory (RSL) Web server. (Contact: Stephen Lime Research Fellow, University of Minnesota - Remote Sensing Lab, 110 Green Hall, 1530 N Cleveland Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55108 Phone: (612) 624-3459 Fax: (612) 625-5212 email: sdlime@forestry.umn.edu) Local Information Sources: GIS Jobs Clearinghouse. Minnesota GIS Resources. Remote sensing and GIS mailing list archives. ArcInfo AML's. RS/GIS on the Internet: Data Rich Sites(DEM's, Imagery, Standards).

VEGETATION Data Service: (Belgium Federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs (O.S.T.C.), Rue de la Science 8, Wetenschapsstraat B-1000, Brussels BELGIUM tel: +32.2.238.34.11 Telefax : +32.2.230.59.12 Email: www@belspo.be, OTHER PARTNERS: Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (France), European Commission, Swedish National Space Board (Sweden), L'Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (Italy)) "The image processing and archiving centre, located in Mol, Belgium, processes all data received from the vegetation instrument on board the SPOT 4 satellite, archives the processed data, compiles the image catalogue, and forwards finished products to vegetation users...The main mission of the VEGETATION system is to continuously observe and monitor the entire continental biosphere and crops, both on regional and global scales. VEGETATION products are tailor made to answer the needs of many customers interested in the evolution of the world vegetation cover, forecasting agricultural production, deforestation and desertification, or the effects of climate change."

Ocean Remote Sensing Group (SRO) of the Space Department of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. (Applied Physics Lab, 11100 Johns Hopkins Rd, Laurel, MD, 20723-6099 tel:(240) 228-5000 email: Frank_Monaldo@jhuapl.edu) Projects include: The Practical Oceanographer, Educational Projects, Wave Parameter Calculator, Sea Water Density Calculator, Coastal Mixing and Optics Experiment (CMO), MISE (password access), Coastal Ocean Processes Experiment (COPE).

Scholarly papers and ESRI Conference Proceedings

(Legend: ESRI User Conference Papers list the title, then in parentheses "paper" or "abstract" plus the year. Other web-located papers list title, author if known, and excerpt.)

Change Detection Using Remotely Sensed Data (1996 ESRI Conf. Abstract, David Weinstein)...LUCCAS, the Land Use and Cover Change Analysis System, is a GUI-based change detection application which enables users to perform their own change detection analysis. The result of the final user interface is an expert system for executing change detection applications operated entirely by "point and click" icons facilitating data entry, parameter selection, analysis systems, and output formats specifications by the users.

Digital Elevation Models: Issues of Data Accuracy and Applications (Jay Lee, Department of Geography Kent State University Kent, Ohio 44242-0001 Telephone: 330-672-3222 Fax: 330-672-4304 Email: lee@humboldt.kent.edu). With the increasing availability of data for digital elevation models (DEM) and the software capable of processing them, it is important for users of DEM data to be aware of the effect that data accuracy has on the results of their applications. In this paper, we examined the relationship between simulated errors and the results of extracting hydrological features from DEMs. The simulated errors were controlled to have various degrees of spatial cluterness to allow further investigation of the impact on the extracted hydrological features. The results of our study suggest that even errors of small magnitudes would significantly affect the quality of extracted hydrological features. It is extremely important for users of DEM data to recognize this limitation and not to overly confident on the results of less accurate data.

GIS Techniques for Evaluating Wetland Maps Derived from Remotely Sensed Data* (Joseph Spruce, Risa Wu, Russell Berry) Wetland delineation remains a problematic issue for governmental agencies involved with environmental monitoring. Remotely sensed data, particularly aerial photographs, are important for mapping wetlands at regional scales. New digital remote sensing technologies (e.g., medium- to high-resolution multiband satellite and airborne imagery of visible, near-infrared, mid-infrared, thermal, and radar spectral regions) may improve National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) mapping efforts by increasing map accuracy and reducing map production costs. In response, NASA's Commercial Remote Sensing Program Office performed a study to evaluate the utility of commercially available remote sensing technology for deriving wetland classification and mapping products for the NWI. This paper discusses GIS techniques used to assist this investigation. This project involved processing each remotely sensed data set into wetness maps for comparisons against NWI maps and GPS-based field survey data. GIS tools found in ArcInfo software proved to be indispensable for quantifying and visualizing comparisons of test and reference wetness maps. GISs also assisted in wetness signature evaluation and development by enabling analysts to cross-tabulate unsupervised classifications of remotely sensed data with NWI wetness maps.

GIS & DEM tutorials (Utah State University): (Utah State University, College of Natural Resources, Logan, Utah 84322-5240, voice (801)797-1790, fax (801)797-4048 Contact: R. Douglas Ramsey email:doug@nr.usu.edu) GENERATING CONTOUR LINES FROM 7.5 MIN DEM FILES, R. Douglas Ramsey. IMPORTING USGS 3-ARC SECOND DTED INTO AN ARC LATTICE, R. Douglas Ramsey

Remote sensing for landscape ecology: new metric indicators for monitoring, modelling, and assessment of ecosystems. (Frohn, Robert C. 1997.) Lewis Publishers, CRC Press. 224 p. $59.95 US. See http://www.crcpress.com/

Remote Sensing of the Global Environment. (by David J. Schneider, Department of Geological Engineering and Sciences, Michigan Technological University, email: djschnei@mtu.edu.) Interesting tutorial and links on remote sensing.