According to ecological researcher Dennis Ojima from Colorado State University (CSU), new technology and global observations have improved resource-management decision-making.
This technology could benefit areas including disaster detection and mitigation of fires, insect outbreaks, storms and floods, as well as agricultural management and basic ecological research.
The first views of Earth from space reminded us, continued Ojima, that the planet is an integrated system of organisms, water, land, and atmosphere.
These views have helped scientists observe Earth across continents, through oceans and gain a better understanding of ecological systems at multiple levels.
In ‘Symposium 9’, an event to be held at the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, scientists will discuss their current research practices involving remote sensing (use of satellites, airplanes, and other distance-related technologies).
Michael Lefsky of Colorado State University will open the symposium with a talk about the use of airborne and satellite-based laser technologies (lidar).
Lidar instruments directly sense vertical structure by recording the ‘echo’ from laser pulses reflecting off vegetation and ground surfaces.
Satellites provide synoptic views with the potential to make repeat observations, yet the technology, according to Susan Ustin of the University of California, Davis, is limited by today’s spatial and spectral resolutions and their fixed overpass schedules, often restricting the use of satellite data for ecological studies.
In her presentation, Ustin will provide insight on the uses of and instruments available for aircraft observations.
According to Ustin, high fidelity imaging spectroscopy and small footprint lidar are two new technologies that provide essential information needed to characterise landscape dynamics.
She will discuss the types of landscapes that are measurable using those instruments and examine how ecosystem functions related to biogeochemical cycling and landscape dynamics can be quantified.
Gregory Asner from Carnegie Institution will focus on recent progress in ecological and remote sensing science, and how this has opened up new research opportunities in regional studies.
Conserving tropical ecosystems
Many African countries have adopted national plans for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management, but often lack basic information on the rates and extent of environmental change, but according to Nadine Laporte (Woods Hole Research Center), space-based earth monitoring technologies can provide detailed analyses of the state of tropical ecosystems.
Laporte will discuss two projects designed and adopted to conservation and forest management in the talk, ‘Remote sensing tools for conservation policy: INFORMS and PAWAR.’
"These new missions will revolutionise ecology from space." David Schimel
The Integrated Forest Monitoring System for Central Africa (INFORMS) is focused on Africa’s entire tropical forest region, while Protected Area Watch in the Albertine Riff (PAWAR) focuses on the greater Albertine ecosystem, which extends across 330,000 kilometres of six countries.
Laporte will focus on management decisions as they relate to African tropical biodiversity and associated economic activities in these regions.
The migration of large mammals over large distances is a prominent yet threatened occurrence, but by using remote sensing and landscape modelling, researchers can describe and predict major landscape changes that may affect these migrations.
In ‘Landscape analysis and ungulate movement in the Greater Yellowstone Region,’ California Stare University, Monterey Bay’s Fred Watson will describe research done on bison in Yellowstone National Park.
According to David Schimel of the National Center for Atmospheric Research: “These new missions will revolutionise ecology from space, but will also challenge the theory, algorithms and models the community now uses to analyse space-based data.”
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Date Published: August 08, 2007
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