Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
lies in extended collaboration with remote-sensing scientists to advance such
integrated approaches, especially in fields in which EPA has extensive or nas-
cent expertise in such domains as pollutant fate and transport, landscape ecol-
ogy, ecosystem service mapping and monitoring, environmental-disaster moni-
toring, and health impact assessment.
Terrestrial-Ecosystem Monitoring with Remote Sensing
Remote sensing of land surfaces has evolved from technically complex but
thematically relatively simple land-use and land-cover mapping and monitoring
to technically and scientifically complex monitoring and modeling of surface
properties and processes, such as three-dimensional (3D) vegetation structure
and net primary production. From a technologic perspective, important trends in
remote sensing of terrestrial ecosystems include (Wang et al. 2010)
Increasing availability of multispectral imagery with very high spatial
resolution (0.5-10 m) from satellite systems such as IKONOS, GeoEye-1,
SPOT-5, and FORMOSAT-2.
Increasing availability of imaging spectrometer data with more than
100 narrow (10-20 nm) spectral bands at moderately high (10-500 m) resolu-
tion from satellite-borne systems, such as EO-1 Hyperion, and aircraft-borne
systems, such as the Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager.
Imaging LiDAR from aircraft platforms for regional studies (for exam-
ple, laser vegetation-imaging sensors) and satellite platforms for global studies
(for example, the Geosciences Laser Altimeter System carried on the Ice, Cloud,
and Land Elevation Satellite).
Well-calibrated thermal remote-sensing data at fine spatial resolution
(the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer and
the Hyperspectral Infrared Imager), moderate resolution (the Moderate Resolu-
tion Imaging Spectrodiameter and the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer
Suite), and coarse resolution (the Geostationary Operational Environmental Sat-
ellite and the Meteosat Second Generation Satellite) for monitoring surface-
energy balance, evapotranspiration, plant stress, and drought.
Constellations of small satellites capable of high-frequency global cov-
erage for environmental event and disaster monitoring (for example, the UK
Disaster Monitoring Constellation Satellite).
Imaging spectrometers hold special promise for obtaining detailed infor-
mation about plant-community composition and the physiologic condition of
canopies and allowing monitoring of community succession, phenology, species
invasions, crop yield, soil chemistry, and nutrient cycling. Issues of data quality
and data access are diminishing, and progress is being made in radiative-transfer
models, spectral-mixture models, and physically based inversion models for
multiscale monitoring of terrestrial ecosystem processes (Schaepman et al.
2009).
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