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At least 217 records · Page 12

Application of remote sensing to selected problems within the state of California

Specific case studies undertaken to demonstrate the usefulness of remote sensing technology to resource managers in California are highlighted. Applications discussed include the mapping and quantization of wildland fire fuels in Mendocino and Shasta Counties as well as in the Central Valley; the development of a digital spectral/terrain data set for Colusa County; the Forsythe Planning Experiment to maximize the usefulness of inputs from LANDSAT and geographic information systems to county planning in Mendocino County; the development of a digital data bank for Big Basin State Park in Santa Cruz County; the detection of salinity related cotton canopy reflectance differences in the Central Valley; and the surveying of avocado acreage and that of other fruits and nut crops in Southern California. Special studies include the interpretability of high altitude, large format photography of forested areas for coordinated resource planning using U-2 photographs of the NASA Bucks Lake Forestry test site in the Plumas National Forest in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Colwell, R. N.↗

ESRI applications of GIS technology: Mineral resource development

The application of geographic information systems technology to large scale regional assessment related to mineral resource development, identifying candidate sites for related industry, and evaluating sites for waste disposal is discussed. Efforts to develop data bases were conducted at scales ranging from 1:3,000,000 to 1:25,000. In several instances, broad screening was conducted for large areas at a very general scale with more detailed studies subsequently undertaken in promising areas windowed out of the generalized data base. Increasingly, the systems which are developed are structured as the spatial framework for the long-term collection, storage, referencing, and retrieval of vast amounts of data about large regions. Typically, the reconnaissance data base for a large region is structured at 1:250,000 scale, data bases for smaller areas being structured at 1:25,000, 1:50,000 or 1:63,360. An integrated data base for the coterminous US was implemented at a scale of 1:3,000,000 for two separate efforts.

Derrenbacher, W.↗

LANDSAT demonstration/application and GIS integration in south central Alaska

Automated geographic information systems were developed for two sites in Southcentral Alaska to serve as tests for both the process of integrating classified LANDSAT data into a comprehensive environmental data base and the process of using automated information in land capability/suitability analysis and environmental planning. The Big Lake test site, located approximately 20 miles north of the City of Anchorage, comprises an area of approximately 150 square miles. The Anchorage Hillside test site, lying approximately 5 miles southeast of the central part of the city, extends over an area of some 25 square miles. Map construction and content is described.

Burns, A. W.↗

Identifying environmental features for land management decisions

Advances in digital processing of LANDSAT imagery and in the interpretation of aerial photography are reported as well as the development of a geographic information system and the acquisition of cartographic equipment. Services to technical specialists and dignitaries are also described. The status of the following studies is discussed: Farmington Bay waterfowl; Sevier River wetland and agriculture; Davis County foothill development; Bear River Range aspen habitat; Wasatch-Cache riparian habitats; irrigated acreage in the Bear River Basin; the Parker Mountain rangeland inventory; and the development of techniques for inventorying aspen and aspen conifer stands. The cooperative project with NASA-Ames to verify LANDSAT digital maps of the forest and range resources on the LaSal Mountains is also considered.

Source record↗

Exploration into technical procedures for vertical integration

Issues in the design and use of a digital geographic information system incorporating landuse, zoning, hazard, LANDSAT, and other data are discussed. An eleven layer database was generated. Issues in spatial resolution, registration, grid versus polygonal structures, and comparison of photointerpreted landuse to LANDSAT land cover are examined.

Michel, R. J.↗

Needs for registration and rectification of satellite imagery for land use and land cover and hydrologic applications

The use of satellite imagery and data for registration of land use, land cover and hydrology was discussed. Maps and aggregations are made from existing the data in concert with other data in a geographic information system. Basic needs for registration and rectification of satellite imagery related to specifying, reformatting, and overlaying the data are noted. It is found that the data are sufficient for users who must expand much effort in registering data.

Gaydos, L.↗

Relation of land use/land cover to resource demands

Predictive models for forecasting residential energy demand are investigated. The models are examined in the context of implementation through manipulation of geographic information systems containing land use/cover information. Remotely sensed data is examined as a possible component in this process.

Clayton, C.↗

A data base approach for prediction of deforestation-induced mass wasting events

A major topic of concern in timber management is determining the impact of clear-cutting on slope stability. Deforestation treatments on steep mountain slopes have often resulted in a high frequency of major mass wasting events. The Geographic Information System (GIS) is a potentially useful tool for predicting the location of mass wasting sites. With a raster-based GIS, digitally encoded maps of slide hazard parameters can be overlayed and modeled to produce new maps depicting high probability slide areas. The present investigation has the objective to examine the raster-based information system as a tool for predicting the location of the clear-cut mountain slopes which are most likely to experience shallow soil debris avalanches. A literature overview is conducted, taking into account vegetation, roads, precipitation, soil type, slope-angle and aspect, and models predicting mass soil movements. Attention is given to a data base approach and aspects of slide prediction.

Logan, T. L.↗

CIRSS vertical data integration, San Bernardino study

The creation and use of a vertically integrated data base, including LANDSAT data, for local planning purposes in a portion of San Bernardino County, California are described. The project illustrates that a vertically integrated approach can benefit local users, can be used to identify and rectify discrepancies in various data sources, and that the LANDSAT component can be effectively used to identify change, perform initial capability/suitability modeling, update existing data, and refine existing data in a geographic information system. Local analyses were developed which produced data of value to planners in the San Bernardino County Planning Department and the San Bernardino National Forest staff.

Hodson, W.↗

LANDSAT technology transfer to the private and public sectors through community colleges and other locally available institutions, phase 2 program

A program established by NASA with the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM) applies a network where the major participants are NASA, universities or research institutes, community colleges, and local private and public organizations. Local users are given an opportunity to obtain "hands on" training in LANDSAT data analysis and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques using a desk top, interactive remote analysis station (RAS). The RAS communicates with a central computing facility via telephone line, and provides for generation of land use and land suitability maps and other data products via remote command. During the period from 22 September 1980 - 6 March 1982, 15 workshops and other training activities were successfully conducted throughout Michigan providing hands on training on the RAS terminals for 250 or more people and user awareness activities such as exhibits and demonstrations for 2,000 or more participants.

Rogers, R. H.↗

Forestry timber typing. Tanana demonstration project, Alaska ASVT

The feasibility of using LANDSAT digital data in conjunction with topographic data to delineate commercial forests by stand size and crown closure in the Tanana River basin of Alaska was tested. A modified clustering approach using two LANDSAT dates to generate an initial forest type classification was then refined with topographic data. To further demonstrate the ability of remotely sensed data in a fire protection planning framework, the timber type data were subsequently integrated with terrain information to generate a fire hazard map of the study area. This map provides valuable assistance in initial attack planning, determining equipment accessibility, and fire growth modeling. The resulting data sets were incorporated into the Alaska Department of Natural Resources geographic information system for subsequent utilization.

Morrissey, L. A.↗

Use of collateral information to improve LANDSAT classification accuracies

Methods to improve LANDSAT classification accuracies were investigated including: (1) the use of prior probabilities in maximum likelihood classification as a methodology to integrate discrete collateral data with continuously measured image density variables; (2) the use of the logit classifier as an alternative to multivariate normal classification that permits mixing both continuous and categorical variables in a single model and fits empirical distributions of observations more closely than the multivariate normal density function; and (3) the use of collateral data in a geographic information system as exercised to model a desired output information layer as a function of input layers of raster format collateral and image data base layers.

Strahler, A. H.↗

University/industry collaboration in remote sensing education

A graduate level course covering the development and structure of geographical information systems and the acquisition and processing of LANDSAT data for input to these systems is described. A portion of the course was devoted to hands-on classification of LANDSAT digital tapes utilizing both university and private industry processing systems. This industry/university collaboration was extremely successful and resulted in a high quality course. It gave the students an excellent experience in working in a real-world client/consultant relationship undertaken to accomplish a specific task. There were two key factors in the success of the collaboration. First, there was a very careful product definition and advance meetings between the University faculty and the company personnel to be involved. Second, the students were not taken into the industrial facility until late in the course, after they had a reasonable knowledge of the physical bases of remote sensing, the concept of spectral signatures, and the fundamentals of pattern analysis.

Ragan, R. M.↗

Remote sensing education for the Earth sciences: The University of Georgia experience

A prospectus is presented of the following courses offered by the Department of Geography: (1) use and interpretation of aerial photographs; (2) advanced photogrammetry; (3) remote sensing of environment; (4) geographic information systems; and (5) directed problems in the remote sensing of the environment. In addition to the course content and objectives, the various equipments available for student training and use are listed.

Welch, R.↗

Second Eastern Regional Remote Sensing Applications Conference

Participants from state and local governments share experiences in remote sensing applications with one another and with users in the Federal government, universities, and the private sector during technical sessions and forums covering agriculture and forestry; land cover analysis and planning; surface mining and energy; data processing; water quality and the coastal zone; geographic information systems; and user development programs.

Imhoff, M. L.↗

Monitoring land conversions from forest/wetland to agriculture

The utility of LANDSAT data in monitoring largescale land clearance and drainage activities in a forest/wetland environment in northern Minnesota was investigated. LANDSAT tapes from 1973, 1978 and 1980 were used in a multitemporal unsupervised land cover classification of the 9 x 15 mile site. Results show quite clearly and in a cost-effective manner, where the greatest activity occurred. It was also possible to integrate the LANDSAT data with other data available through the Land Management Information Center's geographic information system.

Dudding, M. L.↗

Fundamental procedures of geographic information analysis

Analytical procedures common to most computer-oriented geographic information systems are composed of fundamental map processing operations. A conceptual framework for such procedures is developed and basic operations common to a broad range of applications are described. Among the major classes of primitive operations identified are those associated with: reclassifying map categories as a function of the initial classification, the shape, the position, or the size of the spatial configuration associated with each category; overlaying maps on a point-by-point, a category-wide, or a map-wide basis; measuring distance; establishing visual or optimal path connectivity; and characterizing cartographic neighborhoods based on the thematic or spatial attributes of the data values within each neighborhood. By organizing such operations in a coherent manner, the basis for a generalized cartographic modeling structure can be developed which accommodates a variety of needs in a common, flexible and intuitive manner. The use of each is limited only by the general thematic and spatial nature of the data to which it is applied.

Berry, J. K.↗