Geospatial
SSC helps develop forest warning
SSC helps develop forest warning
...STENNIS SPACE CENTER, Miss. - The goal is easily stated: Create an
airborne remote sensing system where threats to the nation’s forests, whether
from fire, disease or other causes, can be detected before they increase in
severity or extent.
...“Something will be rolled out in the next few years,” said Joe Spruce, a senior
research scientist at NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center. “The purpose is to
build and deploy an early warning system that includes detection of forest
disturbance at regional and national scales.”
...The Forest Incidence Recognition and State Tracking (FIRST) Early Warning
System (EWS) will use remote sensors on satellites and aircraft to detect
vegetation changes on a weekly basis, providing near real-time information on
forest canopy conditions as they are impacted by insects, diseases, wildfires or
extreme weather events.
...Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Miss., is working with the U.S.
Forest Service Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center
(EFETAC) and Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center to
develop the system to help land managers.
...The coverage area is considerable. According to the U.S. Forest Service, there
are an estimated 747 million acres of forest in the United States.
...“The idea here is to develop a two tier capability,” said Spruce, who is with
Science Systems and Applications Inc., a subcontractor to Computer Sciences
Corp. at Stennis. He said there are about a dozen people at Stennis who are
working in part to support the FIRST EWS project.
...The two tiers include a strategic, satellite-based monitoring of the nation’s
forests to identify locations where threats are suspected, and a fine-scale, tactical
tier with airborne overflights and on-the-ground monitoring to check the validity
of warnings from the upper tier.
...A key component of the first tier is land surface phenology – the expected
timing of normal seasonal vegetation changes – to create weekly forest
disturbance detection maps. The products are generated using images captured
by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS sensors,
aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites. Terra orbits north to south while Aqua
passes south to north. They view the entire earth's surface every one to two
days, acquiring data in 36 spectral bands.
...“Work thus far has been promising,” said Spruce. “We can clearly detect
regional patterns of forest disturbance from the MODIS data.”
...Being able to detect the changes from the normal expectation of seasonal and
annual changes in vegetation may be the biggest challenge. A historical
perspective is needed to define a “baseline” for expected behavior. It may be
necessary to combine temperature, precipitation, soils, and topographic
information with the remotely sensed data on vegetation conditions to
discriminate and interpret the changing vegetation disturbances on the ground.
...Plans are to have the service accessible online for land managers and other
users.
...“We think that timely regional forest change detection products in a format
that is easily accessible will help provide new, previously unavailable early
warnings of prevalent forest threats. This application will enable new ways to
monitor vital signs of forests and to respond where threats occur,” said Spruce.
...The tactical tier is already largely in place within the U.S. Forest Service and
its state collaborators. It includes aerial detection surveys, ground surveys, and
trapping programs. But the second tier efforts are expensive and labor-intensive,
and may not provide sufficient broad-area coverage. The national system will
rely on the finer-scale efforts to confirm, validate, and attribute causes of forest
disturbances. The national system will help direct the focus of the tactical tier,
making their efforts more cost efficient and effective.
...The article indicates an ideal warning system for forest threats would be
national in scope, automated, able to improve its prognostic ability with
experience and would provide regular map updates online in familiar and
accessible formats.
...Last year the team produced and assessed experimental near real time
products for the conterminous United States. Plans for this year call for
producing more imagery on a more frequent basis and providing them to the
Forest Service and other users. Eventually it will include a public open access
capability.
...Since 2005, the USDA Forest Service has partnered with Stennis and Oak
Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee to develop methods for monitoring
environmental threats, including native insects and diseases, wildfire, invasive
pests and pathogens, tornados, hurricanes, and hail. The tools help the Forest
Service’s two Environmental Threat Assessment Centers meet a Congressional
mandate to help track the health of the nation’s forests and rangelands.
...Spruce said they’ve been working on this EWS since the late fall of 2006.
...“This work was mandated through the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of
2003,” said Spruce. The Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Center in
Asheville, N.C., was designated the lead, and NASA was enlisted to help. The
primary monitoring will be done in Asheville. - David Tortorano
April 2010
airborne remote sensing system where threats to the nation’s forests, whether
from fire, disease or other causes, can be detected before they increase in
severity or extent.
...“Something will be rolled out in the next few years,” said Joe Spruce, a senior
research scientist at NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center. “The purpose is to
build and deploy an early warning system that includes detection of forest
disturbance at regional and national scales.”
...The Forest Incidence Recognition and State Tracking (FIRST) Early Warning
System (EWS) will use remote sensors on satellites and aircraft to detect
vegetation changes on a weekly basis, providing near real-time information on
forest canopy conditions as they are impacted by insects, diseases, wildfires or
extreme weather events.
...Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Miss., is working with the U.S.
Forest Service Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center
(EFETAC) and Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center to
develop the system to help land managers.
...The coverage area is considerable. According to the U.S. Forest Service, there
are an estimated 747 million acres of forest in the United States.
...“The idea here is to develop a two tier capability,” said Spruce, who is with
Science Systems and Applications Inc., a subcontractor to Computer Sciences
Corp. at Stennis. He said there are about a dozen people at Stennis who are
working in part to support the FIRST EWS project.
...The two tiers include a strategic, satellite-based monitoring of the nation’s
forests to identify locations where threats are suspected, and a fine-scale, tactical
tier with airborne overflights and on-the-ground monitoring to check the validity
of warnings from the upper tier.
...A key component of the first tier is land surface phenology – the expected
timing of normal seasonal vegetation changes – to create weekly forest
disturbance detection maps. The products are generated using images captured
by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS sensors,
aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites. Terra orbits north to south while Aqua
passes south to north. They view the entire earth's surface every one to two
days, acquiring data in 36 spectral bands.
...“Work thus far has been promising,” said Spruce. “We can clearly detect
regional patterns of forest disturbance from the MODIS data.”
...Being able to detect the changes from the normal expectation of seasonal and
annual changes in vegetation may be the biggest challenge. A historical
perspective is needed to define a “baseline” for expected behavior. It may be
necessary to combine temperature, precipitation, soils, and topographic
information with the remotely sensed data on vegetation conditions to
discriminate and interpret the changing vegetation disturbances on the ground.
...Plans are to have the service accessible online for land managers and other
users.
...“We think that timely regional forest change detection products in a format
that is easily accessible will help provide new, previously unavailable early
warnings of prevalent forest threats. This application will enable new ways to
monitor vital signs of forests and to respond where threats occur,” said Spruce.
...The tactical tier is already largely in place within the U.S. Forest Service and
its state collaborators. It includes aerial detection surveys, ground surveys, and
trapping programs. But the second tier efforts are expensive and labor-intensive,
and may not provide sufficient broad-area coverage. The national system will
rely on the finer-scale efforts to confirm, validate, and attribute causes of forest
disturbances. The national system will help direct the focus of the tactical tier,
making their efforts more cost efficient and effective.
...The article indicates an ideal warning system for forest threats would be
national in scope, automated, able to improve its prognostic ability with
experience and would provide regular map updates online in familiar and
accessible formats.
...Last year the team produced and assessed experimental near real time
products for the conterminous United States. Plans for this year call for
producing more imagery on a more frequent basis and providing them to the
Forest Service and other users. Eventually it will include a public open access
capability.
...Since 2005, the USDA Forest Service has partnered with Stennis and Oak
Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee to develop methods for monitoring
environmental threats, including native insects and diseases, wildfire, invasive
pests and pathogens, tornados, hurricanes, and hail. The tools help the Forest
Service’s two Environmental Threat Assessment Centers meet a Congressional
mandate to help track the health of the nation’s forests and rangelands.
...Spruce said they’ve been working on this EWS since the late fall of 2006.
...“This work was mandated through the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of
2003,” said Spruce. The Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Center in
Asheville, N.C., was designated the lead, and NASA was enlisted to help. The
primary monitoring will be done in Asheville. - David Tortorano
April 2010
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