Remote Sensing Commons^™

Application Of Iterative Noise-Adding Procedures For Evaluation Of Moment Distance Index For Lidar Waveforms, Eric Ariel L. Salas, Sadichya Amatya, Geoffrey Henebry

GSCE Faculty Publications

The new Moment Distance (MD) framework uses the backscattering profile captured in waveform LiDAR data to characterize the complicated waveform shape and highlight specific regions within the waveform extent. To assess the strength of the new metric for LiDAR application, we use the full-waveform LVIS data acquired over La Selva, Costa Rica in 1998 and 2005. We illustrate how the Moment Distance Index (MDI) responds to waveform shape changes due to variations in signal noise levels. Our results show that the MDI is robust in the face of three different types of noise—additive, uniform additive, and impulse. In effect, the …

Income Shocks And The Acceptance Of Intimate Partner Violence In Indonesia, Matthew N. Krupoff

Master's Theses

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive issue affecting 1 in 3 women worldwide. Despite the negative welfare impacts, it is still seen as acceptable in some parts of the world, even amongst women. This paper examines how elastic these accepting attitudes towards IPV are to changing economic conditions. Specifically, this paper focuses on changes in intra-household resources from negative shocks to male-sourced income. The setting and context takes place in coastal communities in Indonesia, where fishing is a main source ofincome generated primarily by men. This paper uses satellite-derived fishing conditions to measure how women's attitudes towards IPV change …

Comparisons Of Global Land Surface Seasonality And Phenology Derived From Avhrr, Modis And Viirs Data, Xiaoyang Zhang

Global Land Surface Season Data Sets

The data set in this collection is for the paper Comparisons of Global Land Surface Seasonality and Phenology Derived from AVHRR, MODIS and VIIRS Data which will be published in the "Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences."

Pavement Surface Distress Detection, Assessment, And Modeling Using Geospatial Techniques, Su Zhang

Civil Engineering ETDs

Roadway pavement surface distress information is essential for effective pavement asset management, and subsequently, transportation agencies at all levels dedicate a large amount of time and money to routinely collect data on pavement surface distress conditions as the core of their asset management programs. These data are used by these agencies to make maintenance and repair decisions. Current methods for pavement surface distress evaluation are time-consuming and expensive. Geospatial technologies provide new methods for evaluating pavement surface distress condition that can supplement or substitute for currently-adopted evaluation methods. However, few previous studies have explored the utility of geospatial technologies for …

An Operational Drought Prediction Framework With Application Of Vine Copula Functions, Mahkameh Zarekarizi

Student Research Symposium

Early and accurate drought predictions can benefit water resources and emergency managers by enhancing drought preparedness. Soil moisture memory is shown to contain helpful information for prediction of future values. This study uses the soil moisture memory to predict their future states via multivariate statistical modeling. We present a drought forecasting framework which issues monthly and seasonal drought forecasts. This framework estimates droughts with different lead times and updates the forecasts when more data become available. Forecasts are generated by conditioning future soil moisture values on antecedent drought status. The statistical model is initialized by soil moisture simulations retrieved from …

A Catch 22 Of 3d Data Sustainability: Lessons In 3d Archaeological Data Management & Accessibility, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Jennifer Von Schwerin

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archaeologists can now collect an inordinate amount of 3D data. But are these 3D data sustainable? Are they being managed to make them accessible? The MayaArch3D Project researched and addressed these questions by applying best practices to build four prototype tools to store, manage, visualize, and analyze multi-resolution, geo-referenced 3D models in a web-based environment. While the technical aspects of these tools have been published, this position paper addresses a catch 22 that we, as archaeologists, encounter in the field of 3D archaeology – one that formed the initial impetus for the MayaArch3D Project: that is, while the quantity of …

Black Matter, Kahlil Irving

Graduate School of Art Theses

History as we know it, is inherited. Racism, fascism, white supremacy, and Eurocentric dominance have been presented as normal and acceptable within our society for many years. This has allowed police officers to execute Black American’s and not be acquitted for their horrendous crimes. As an activist I want to challenge the status quo. As an artist I am interested in investigating how I can present ideas embody or reflect contemporary issues and concerns. Using different colors can aggressively change how an object is perceived. Historical objects hold many important.

I explore many mediums, but an anchor material that I …

Sentinel-1 Slc Processing: Summer Internship With Clark Labs, Lei Tang

Sustainability and Social Justice

My summer internship with Clark Labs was mainly focused on technological and methodological exploration of Sentinel-1 SLC data, under the direct supervision of James Toledano. The main responsibilities of my internship were understanding theory and science behind Sentinel-1, utilizing the SNAP toolbox to determine the proper imagery processing steps in order to distinguish the land structure clearly. 36 testing on different combination of acquisition modes, speckle filters and time gap were conducted during that time.

I would highly recommend this internship to other GISDE students. The dynamic nature of the GISDE program provides students with the opportunity to be able …

Impacts Of Thermal Time On Land Surface Phenology In Urban Areas, Cole Krehbiel, Xiaoyang Zhang, Geoffrey Henebry

GSCE Faculty Publications

Urban areas alter local atmospheric conditions by modifying surface albedo and consequently the surface radiation and energy balances, releasing waste heat from anthropogenic uses, and increasing atmospheric aerosols, all of which combine to increase temperatures in cities, especially overnight, compared with surrounding rural areas, resulting in a phenomenon called the “urban heat island" effect. Recent rapid urbanization of the planet has generated calls for remote sensing research related to the impacts of urban areas and urbanization on the natural environment. Spatially extensive, high spatial resolution data products are needed to capture phenological patterns in regions with heterogeneous land cover and …

Examination Of The Potential Of Terrestrial Laser Scanning And Structure-From-Motion Photogrammetry For Rapid Nondestructive Field Measurement Of Grass Biomass, Sam D. Cooper, David P. Roy, Crystal B. Schaaf, Ian Paynter

GSCE Faculty Publications

Above ground biomass (AGB) is a parameter commonly used for assessment of grassland systems. Destructive AGB measurements, although accurate, are time consuming and are not easily undertaken on a repeat basis or over large areas. Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry and Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) are two technologies that have the potential to yield precise 3D structural measurements of vegetation quite rapidly. Recent advances have led to the successful application of TLS and SfM in woody biomass estimation, but application in natural grassland systems remains largely untested. The potential of these techniques for AGB estimation is examined considering 11 grass plots with …

Development Of A Multiband Remote Sensing System For Determination Of Unsaturated Soil Properties, Cyrus D. Garner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A multiband system including active microwave sensing and visible-near infrared reflectance spectroscopy was developed to measure unsaturated soil properties in both field and laboratory environments. Remote measurements of soil volumetric water content (θv), soil water matric potential (ψ), and soil index properties (liquid limit [LL], plastic limit [PL], and clay fraction [CF]) were conducted. Field-based measurement of θv was conducted using a ground-based radar system and field measurements within 10 percentage points of measurements acquired with traditional sampling techniques were obtained. Laboratory-based, visible and near infrared spectroscopy was found to be capable of obtaining empirical, soil specific regression functions (partial …

Assessing Landslide Susceptibility With Gis Using Qualitative And Quantitative Methods In Knox County, Nebraska, Christian J. Cruz

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis assesses landslide susceptibility using data from LiDAR DEMs, land cover, and soil surveys. Data were assessed quantitatively through Bayesian logistic regression within a geographic information system (GIS) and statistical software to produce a landslide susceptibility map. The study area exhibits moderate relief where bluffs along the Missouri River valley gradually recede into rolling loess-mantled hills further to the south and southeast in Knox County. The six factors used to determine susceptibility to landslides are: land cover, parent material, slope aspect, slope curvature slope degree, and soil series. My findings show an increase in slope is the most significant …

The Role Of Sulfur Dioxide In Stratospheric Aerosol Formation Evaluated By Using In Situ Measurements In The Tropical Lower Stratosphere, A. W. Rollins, T. D. Thornberry, L. A. Watts, P. Yu, K. H. Rosenlof, M. Mills, E. Baumann, F. R. Giorgetta, T. V. Bui, M. Höpfner, P. F. Bernath

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Stratospheric aerosols (SAs) are a variable component of the Earth's albedo that may be intentionally enhanced in the future to offset greenhouse gases (geoengineering). The role of tropospheric-sourced sulfur dioxide (SO₂) in maintaining background SAs has been debated for decades without in situ measurements of SO₂ at the tropical tropopause to inform this issue. Here we clarify the role of SO₂ in maintaining SAs by using new in situ SO₂ measurements to evaluate climate models and satellite retrievals. We then use the observed tropical tropopause SO₂ mixing ratios to estimate the global flux of …

Remote Sensing Insights Into Storage Capacities Among Plains Village Horticulturalists, Adam Wiewel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Maize was a fundamental component of the diet and economy of Middle Missouri Plains Village groups, sedentary farmers with settlements along the Missouri River during the last millennia. More than a century of study has contributed to our understanding of agricultural production among these peoples, but little effort has been made to consider temporal variation in production. Such an understanding is crucial to examining changes that occurred before and after the arrival of colonists and their trade goods in the seventeenth century. Plains archaeologists have suggested that the storage capacity of Middle Missouri villages increased during the sixteenth through the …

Sensors Everywhere: Using Satellites And Mobile Phones To Reduce Information Uncertainty In Human Rights Crisis Research, Christoph Koettl

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article critically reviews the use of ICTs for human rights crisis research. While focusing on two specific technologies—satellite imagery and mobile phone technology—it proposes a general framework for analyzing the added value of ICTs. The author suggests that their added value in mass atrocities research arises from their ability to reduce information uncertainty, a challenge that is exacerbated in the digital age. This is different from delivering “truth”, an inaccurate description that only leads to unfulfilled expectations and hopes. The article is written from a practitioner’s perspective, drawing from the work of a global human rights watchdog, thus avoiding …

Grand Challenges In Understanding The Interplay Of Climate And Land Changes, Shuguang Liu, Ben Bond-Lamberty, Lena R. Boysen, James D. Ford, Andrew Fox, Kevin Gallo, Jerry Hatfield, Geoffrey M. Henebry, Thomas G. Huntington, Zhihua Liu, Thomas R. Loveland, Richard J. Norby, Terry Sohl, Allison L. Steiner, Wenping Yuan, Zhao Zhang, Shuqing Zhao

GSCE Faculty Publications

Half of Earth’s land surface has been altered by human activities, creating various consequences on the climate and weather systems at local to global scales, which in turn affect a myriad of land surface processes and the adaptation behaviors. This study reviews the status and major knowledge gaps in the interactions of land and atmospheric changes and present 11 grand challenge areas for the scientific research and adaptation community in the coming decade. These land-cover and land-use change (LCLUC)-related areas include 1) impacts on weather and climate, 2) carbon and other biogeochemical cycles, 3) biospheric emissions, 4) the water cycle, …

Forest Inventory Data, Izaya Numata, Mark Cochrane, Jeppe Kjaersgaard, Sonaira Souza Da Silva

Drought in Amazonia Data Sets

Forest inventory was conducted in Acre, the southwestern Amazon, in July-August in 2014. Field data was collected in four fragmented forest areas. In addition, this forest inventory includes data in forest areas burned in 2005 and 2010 and unburned forest areas. Forest inventory includes information on vegetation species and stem diameter at breast height (DBH) at each plot of 25m x 25m. All trees with DBH ≥ 10cm were measured at 25m x 25m plots and those with DBH< 10cm and lianas were measured at 10m x 10m and 5m x 5m subplots within each 25m x 25m plot.

P10. Road Cracking Area Percentage Evaluation Using Airborne Hyperspectral Imagery, Boyu Feng

Western Research Forum

Background:

Although the airborne platform is efficient and economic compared to the popular ground vehicles in road condition survey (RCS), studies on applying it in RCS are limited. A former study on airborne hyperspectral imagery (AHI) tried to tie a band ratio to pavement condition index. Its result proved the value in AHI, yet pointed out the difficulty in quantitative evaluation.

Methods:

This study further explored the application of AHI in RCS, and fully took advantage of the entire spectrum shape, rather than a ratio. Aiming at the cracking area percentage (CAP) on the asphalt paved arterial road system in …

Exploration Of Scaling Effects On Coarse Resolution Land Surface Phenology, Xiaoyang Zhang, Jianmin Wang, Feng Gao, Yan Liu, Crystal Schaaf, Mark Friedl, Yunyue Yu, Senthilnath Jayavelu, Joshua Gray, Lingling Liu, Dong Yan, Geoffrey M. Henebry

GSCE Faculty Publications

Numerous land surface phenology (LSP) datasets have been produced from various coarse resolution satellite data and different detection algorithms from regional to global scales. In contrast to field-observed phenological events that are defined by clearly evident organismal changes with biophysical meaning, current approaches to detecting transitions in LSP only determine the timing of variations in remotely sensed observations of surface greenness. Since activities to bridge LSP and field observations are challenging and limited, our understanding of the biophysical characteristics of LSP transitions is poor. Therefore, we set out to explore the scaling effects on LSP transitions at the nominal start …

Precipitation Intensity Trend Detection Using Hourly And Daily Observations In Portland, Oregon, Alexis Cooley, Heejun Chang

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

The intensity of precipitation is expected to increase in response to climate change, but the regions where this may occur are unclear. The lack of certainty from climate models warrants an examination of trends in observational records. However, the temporal resolution of records may affect the success of trend detection. Daily observations are often used, but may be too coarse to detect changes. Sub-daily records may improve detection, but their value is not yet quantified. Using daily and hourly records from 24 rain gages in Portland, Oregon (OR), trends in precipitation intensity and volume are examined for the period of …