WHITE PAPER

Collaboration Between the Basic Science and Remote Sensing Initiative

and the Communication Technology Laboratory

13 August 1997 by David Skole Director, Basic Science and Remote Sensing Initiative (BSRSI) MSU Geography Department

Collaboration Potential and Rationale

This brief paper outline potential areas of future collaboration between the Basic Science and Remote Sensing Initiative (BSRSI) of the Geography Department, College of Social Science and the Communications Technology Laboratory. The ideas put forward are preliminary and serve as a basis for discussion only. However, we believe there is very good potential for collaboration, particularly in the areas of new media and information technology research and development. The topical areas which the BSRSI will undertake -- topical deforestation, climate change, land use change -- using the new technologies of remote sensing and geographic information systems are readily enhanced or exploited using the media technologies of digital document publication, web site authoring, and networked telecommunications.

The Landsat Pathfinder project, which we will be bringing to MSU has an on-going need to develop outreach tools, such as Interactive CD ROMs and web sites. Moreover, we have a requirement for basic R and D to understand how these tools can enhance basic research and at the same time convey our ideas and results to the widest possible community, including policy makers, other scientists, educators, and the lay public. However, our experience has shown the most efficient path is not to develop these capabilities completely within the projects we undertake, but through collaboration with outside experts. Thus, we feel collaboration with the CommTechLab, with its exciting mix of technical and artistic talents, could be very exciting and productive.

We can bring important applications, including our participation with existing information technology activities in the private sector, such as our involvement in the Raytheon SIVAM project which is the largest environmental monitoring system ever built using information technology and communication technology, or our involvement in the National Information Infrastructure Testbed (now called InfoTEST), which was the first industry-wide response to the National Information Infrastructure Initiative of the Clinton Administration. These endeavors, which merge information technology with environmental monitoring technologies (such as earth observing orbital satellites) will be a main thrust of the new BSRSI under the banner Technologies for Sustainable Development.

Other applications also demand close collaboration with new media and IT, such as the development of a global forest monitoring program to support the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Global Biodiversity Convention. We are currently leading an initiative developed through collaboration with the various national space agencies under the banner of the International Global Observing System, which will focus on acquiring and disseminating information on the state of the world's forests. We are planning to produce on a regular basis a digital document (on CD ROM and the WWW, as well as in paper format) called the RainForest Report Card, which will take data and information from our on-going projects in the BSRSI and disseminate it in an accessible format to a broad audience. Such a document simply must be multi-media in its design since we use vast amounts of imagery and digital maps which convey information over time -- i.e. which is dynamic. Simple text wont work any more.

These are some examples of areas in which an exciting collaboration might be developed. A general approach is laid out below, in which we describe some of our on-going initiatives and the role in them for communication technology. Moreover, we are not only interested in developing new and exciting products, we are also interested in the lessons and insights to be learned from these new communications tools. We have a strong desire to sit back and critically evaluate the new technologies; how effective they are, how improvements can be made, and how they redefine communications and concepts of space as the world gets connected through the internet/web. This sociological perspective is critical, and hence we would see a strong academic component, as well as opportunities for links to such groups and MIND and E-Space.

The Basic Science and Remote Sensing Initiative

This new initiative will focus on the use of spatial information systems (remote sensing, geographic information systems, etc.) for understanding global change. The emphasis will be on understanding global change from its global to its regional and local perspectives. The initial focus will be on land use and land cover change as a driver of global change. We want to move beyond the discussion of global change as climate change. Land Use and Cover Change (LUCC) is a global change in its own right, and it is with us today. It has profound impact on planetary habitability, including food production, environmental security, climate change, human health and disease, and more. Within the College of Social Science, the Initiative will be interdisciplinary, focusing on understanding the processes which drive the patterns in the landscape we see from space, and which we digital encode in our GIS databases. This theme of Pattern-to-Process will weigh heavily in the orientation of the Initiative in its first 5 years. The observational tools such as remote sensing satellites provide direct empirical information, but we also need to incorporate scholars and scientists who are understanding the processes on the ground -- interviewing farmers, developing diagnostic models using demographic and economic variables, etc. Since our aim is to understand as well as describe these patterns and processes, we will also develop cross-campus collaboration with the Natural Sciences, Agriculture, and other University groups.

The strategic structure for the Initiative at the present time will have the following general components, as we implement the Pattern-to-Process approach:

• Theme 1. Measuring tropical deforestation and other land cover changes using satellites: Landsat Pathfinder/Humid Tropical Forest Inventory Project. This component focuses on acquisition and analysis of Landsat MSS and TM data for the entire humid tropics from 1970s to the present. Approximately 3000 scenes are analyzed to produce digital maps of the rate and geography of deforestation and create an archive of Landsat Data for the global change research community. This component has constructed digital databases and digital information management systems to make the satellite data and products available to the research community at no cost. The project has also provided lessons and insights on ways to improve the development of EOS-DIS and future Landsat systems.
• Theme 2. Analysis and modeling of the effects of deforestation and land cover change. This component focuses on coupling satellite derived deforestation maps to in situ measurements of biomass and soil organic matter in a un-coupled numerical carbon model to estimate the net flux of greenhouse gases. This component also aims to develop an understanding of how observed spatial patterns of deforestation lead to forest fragmentation and in turn how forest fragmentation affects biodiversity and landscape function.
• Theme 3. Analysis and modeling of the underlying dynamics and human dimensions of land use and cover change. This component aims to build models of the deforestation process, beginning in Amazonia. This component integrates socioeconomic data with satellite and biophsyical data to derive insights into the causal factors of deforestation. We will show the importance of regional variation in the proximate and distant drivers, and developed and major hypotheses which can be tested in the field using satellite data and key informant surveys.
• Theme 4. Evaluation and development of new spaceborne land cover monitoring and measurement technologies and methods. One part of this component will work on methods and models for acquiring global coverage with Landsat 7 data as a member of the Landsat 7 Science Team. We hope to have a regional ground receiving station installed at MSU. This component is also exploring new cloud-penetrating radar sensors for measuring deforestation and regrowth age classes in the tropics. It is being developed through collaboration with JPL in Pasadena, California.
• Theme 5. Development of information management systems and technologies for monitoring and mapping land cover change. This component is focused on both outreach (project-specific products) and R and D. The focus will initially be on developing a true web-based geographic information system through collaboration with ESRI, basic web-sit authoring, development of multi-media digital publishing on the web and CD ROM, and collaboration with the private sector on National Information Infrastructure applications of Technology for Sustainable Development (the first being through a major contract with Raytheon to build an environmental monitoring information system for the Amazon).

The Initiative Laboratory is being developed at the Manly Miles building. We should have in place before the end of the first semester a facility for archiving and processing roughly 2,000 Gbytes of spatial data. The main focus of this lab will be to process and analyze the data for basic science of global change issues. We would see some sharing of these resources as a real possibility.

The importance of an application for Communication Technology

One minor criticism of the media technology groups such as the Media Lab is that they have a profound, but limited focus solely on the technology itself. These groups are filling the important niche of defining the technology -- what it is, how can it can evolve and be improved, etc. There appears to be a view that if its is "cool", it is good. Another vital niche needs to emerge, or be filled, in developing important applications of the new technologies for some of the critical problems of our day. We see the coupling of CommTechLab to activities of the BSRSI as fulfilling this niche. We can better understand and explain problems of the global environment through creative development of digital documents and web sites. We can begin to break down the stale debate which opposes jobs and environmental protection through the development of these "green technologies". We can improve the understanding of science and basic research through creative ways of disseminating results and explaining how science works. Thus, "cool apps", could be grounded in real-world problems, and at the same time, as academics, we can continue to explore, examine, and re-develop these new technologies.

Possible points of collaboration.

The areas and means for collaboration would need to be discussed, but as a starting point, it is conceivable to organize collaborative projects around the following BSRSI activities:

1) Developing a state-of-the-art design for our Web Site. Over the course of the next year we will be redesigning our current web site (http://pathfinder-www.sr.unh.edu/pathfinder), to be more interactive and have more accessible content. We would like the site to be a tool for scientists as well as policy makers, educators and the public at large. We need much better design and layout, and need to have more interactive elements such as VRML, morphs, "living documents" in PDF, etc. We need the engineering and design expertise of a group such as CommTech.

2) Development and implementation of advance web site engineering. New tools for web authoring make it possible to increase the utility of a web site as a machine-independent mechanism for collaboration between scientists -- the "collaboratory" concept. One area we will be developing is the implementation of interactive maps and spatial data engines using web browser as the graphical user interface. In other words, we wish to implement full GIS functions on the web. We already have the collaboration of ESRI, but we could also utilize the expertise of groups like CommTech for design specification, defining user preferences and requirements, coupling multi-media tools to the ESRI apps, and implementation.

3) Developing web site metrics and user profile analyses. To ensure we are reaching are targeted audience, and doing so efficiently and effectively, we need to develop a program of metrics which provides such things as user profiles, site reliability statistics, and the like. There is a need to do the basic R and D (i.e., how to make a good web metric device) and do the analysis that provides feedback to the way we design and author the site.

4) Development and publication of the RainForest Report Card. This digital document will be design using Adobe desktop publishing and interactive web PDF, such that we produce a publication quality document which can be distributed on CD, on the web or on paper. The main point is that it would also use the web site itself and the world wide web as a resource for the reader containing interactive links. We would need major support in all phases of design, layout, engineering, and implementation. This could be the flagship project of our collaboration.

5) Development of training CD ROMs. We often develop training seminars for developing country scientists and others. We have a contract with Raytheon to develop a training seminar series for the SIVAM project. We hope to design and create an interactive CD ROM for such seminars.

6) Misc. CD ROMs from the on going projects. We will want to use the CD ROM as a means for distributing data and results from our projects. Collaboration in all facets would be very useful.

7) Virtual reality for enhancing research analysis. We often utilize a variety of media, including satellite images, maps, field notes, photographs in the process of interpreting and analyzing the satellite data. We would like to develop a joint project with CommTech and MIND in which we utilize VR and ground images to link hot spots on satellite imagery to a "ground level walk through the rainforest". From the analytical perspective this provides critically needed 3D element to our ground truth documentation which we don't get from photos alone. From an outreach perspective, it could be an exciting learning tool, allowing web site visitors to walk around in the rainforest as they drop down from space through the satellite imagery.

8) Collaboration in the analysis of communication technology. As researchers we also aim to understand the new technologies as well as use them. We would desire to develop a basic research activity in close collaboration with MIND and other groups on the campus.

Possible approach to collaboration

The BSRSI has resources it could put behind a collaboration. It would be possible to provide personnel, equipment, support funding, or some combination of these. Certainly we feel we have an interesting application area(s) which we would provide, and we hope CommTech also is interested in these areas.

As an initial proposal we could provide a person, Jason Good, to work in the CommTechLab on projects related to the BSRSI collaboration. He has experience already with the web side, as well as the BSRSI projects. He also brings an added dimension of background in sociology, as well as recent private sector experience in web site metrics. Located in CommTechLab, he could be also be available to work on other CommTech projects. BSRSI could provide some fraction, or all, of his salary. In addition we could provide some basic support resources, particularly if we develop products. In the spirit of developing collaboration, we would prefer this approach over "contracting" the CommTechLab to do the work. Its the collaboration we desire as well as the products, particularly in some of the areas which involve basic research.

We could jointly identify the projects to be developed. The list above provides our initial interests, with the top priority probably being the RainForest Report Card.