In the largest study of its kind, NEON will
collaborate with Colorado State University to provide airborne remote
sensing data to study the full range of wildfire effects
In response to one of the worst wildfires in Colorado history,
scientists from the Warner College of Natural Resources at Colorado
State University (CSU) are leading a first of its kind, large-scale
wildfire impact study on the High Park Fire in partnership with
Colorado's newest research facility, the National Ecological Observatory
Network (NEON). The study will provide critical data to communities
still grappling with how to respond to major water quality, erosion and
ecosystem restoration issues in an area spanning more than 136 square
miles.
Supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) RAPID grant, the
collaboration will integrate airborne remote sensing data collected by
NEON's Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) with ground-based data from a
targeted field campaign conducted by CSU researchers. RAPID, short for
Grants for Rapid Response Research, are used for proposals having a real
urgency, including quick-response research on natural disasters. This
effort is the first time a comprehensive airborne remote sensing system
of this caliber will be used to enhance research on wildfire causes and
impacts. The system will be able to detect remaining vegetation,
identify plant species, ash cover, soil properties and other details to
help illustrate how the fire burned--over the span of the entire fire
scar.
"The NEON Airborne Observatory is transforming research by providing
data to researchers and resource managers at temporal and geographic
scales that could not previously be captured," says Elizabeth Blood, NSF
program director for NEON. "By combining ground measurements with data
gathered from cutting-edge instruments in NEON airplanes, scientists are
gathering potentially pivotal information about small scale and large
scale processes that affect the spread of fires through forests and
subsequent forest recovery."
NEON will be to ecological health what an EKG is to heart health.
Like an EKG generates snapshots of heart health by measuring heart
activity at strategic locations on a patient's body, NEON will generate
snapshots of ecosystem health by measuring ecological activity at
strategic locations throughout the U.S. Resulting ecological data will
enable scientists to generate the first apples-to-apples comparisons of
ecosystem health throughout large regions of the U.S. and the entire
country over multiple decades.
Some of NEON's data collection and educational operations have
already begun, and others will begin incrementally until NEON becomes
fully functional in 2017. All of NEON's data, synthesized data products
and associated educational materials will be made freely available on
the Internet. These materials will thereby provide grist for
groundbreaking analyses and educational activities by researchers,
students, decision-makers, educators and the public.
NEON will be fully operational for some 30 years. More information about NEON is provided in this short video.
What is the current and future state of our
Earth's ecology? Answers to this question have traditionally been
woefully inadequate because scientists have lacked a mechanism to
systematically measure the long-term health of large ecosystems. But
that is now changing as a new, precedent-setting, nationwide,
multidisciplinary infrastructure--the National Ecological Observatory
Network (NEON)--is starting to go online across the U.S. NEON is a
first-of-its-kind nationwide sensing instrument that will use
strategically placed sensors to measure long-term ecolological activity.
The sensors will collect data from 106 locations that were selected to
represent the diversity of U.S. ecosystems. And, additional locations
will be added to represent extreme events including wildfires, droughts
and hurricanes. Learn more in this news release and video.
Credit: NASA and Thinkstock (design by National Science Foundation)
Credit: NASA and Thinkstock (design by National Science Foundation)
Currently under construction and partially
operational, NEON will be a nationwide, multidisciplinary infrastructure
for collecting standardized ecological data throughout the U.S. It will
be the first observatory to listen to the pulse of a continental
ecosystem for multiple decades. Dave Tazik, NEON’s director of biology,
and Tom Kampe, NEON’s assistant director for remote sensing, joined
Elizabeth Blood, the NSF program director for NEON, for a webcast in
April 2013 and they provided more information about this cutting-edge
facility. Learn more in this NEON video.
Credit: National Science Foundation
Credit: National Science Foundation
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
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