Workshops

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for Earth Remote Sensing

Organizers: Vincent Ambrosia¹ (NASA-Ames), S. Sukkarieh² (U. of Sydney), Susan Schoenung³ (NASA-ARC), Steven Wegener⁴ (NASA-ARC), Thomas Zajkowski⁵(USFS), Donald Sullivan⁶ (NASA), Stephen Dunagan⁶ (NASA)
¹California State University – Monterey Bay / NASA-Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA. 

²University of Sydney
³Longitude 122 West , NASA-Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA 
⁴BAERI, NASA-Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA 
⁵RedCastle Resources, Inc, US Forest Service – RSAC, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA 
⁶NASA, NASA-Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA 

We have expanded this workshop to a full day to allow hands-on experiences with UAS platforms at the University of Sydney during an afternoon session.  The objective of this full day workshop is to educate and disseminate information on the emerging utility of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for gathering remote sensing measurements and observations of Earth science phenomenon.   

The morning session of the workshop will include an overview of UAS platforms and systems, sensor and operations.  Additionally, workshop presentations will cover the airspace issues and regulations in the region, UAS sensor communications and data systems, and descriptions from UAS users of past, current and potential missions that highlight science and civil applications experiences.

Following lunch, the workshop participants will reconvene at the University of Sydney UAS Lab (15-minute walk from workshop site) to experience the development of UAS platforms, auto-pilot systems, and various elements of UAS systems.  The workshop will close at the University of Sydney with open discussions focused on the challenges and opportunities for UAS systems supporting earth science and applications needs.

The workshop will be led by UAS experts and scientists from NASA, University of Sydney, the U.S. Forest Service, and others.

GEO Forest Carbon Tracking (GEO FCT) Methods and Protocols Workshop

Chairs: Douglas Muchoney, USGS and Alex Held, CSIRO 
The GEO established a Forest Carbon Tracking (FCT) task in 2008 that has focused on the need to integrate satellite remote sensing and ground measurements. Under the task, the goal is to help develop national monitoring systems that consider both changes in forest area and in forest carbon stocks (to estimate storage, emissions and removals of greenhouse gases). The purpose of this workshop is to present and review the GEO FCT Method and Protocol documents including:

Satellite Forest Information Product Specification
Satellite Interoperability & Processing Methods
In Situ Forest Measurements Standards and Protocols
Linking of In Situ Forest Measurements, Remote Sensing and Carbon Models

Managing Drought through Earth Observation

Doug Cripe, Stefan Niemeyer, Francoise Pearlman, George Percivall,
Will Pozzi, Mark Svoboda, Albert Van Dijk

This one-day workshop will bring together the Earth Observation community to look at the issues of drought management approaches in various regions (Asia/Australia, America, Europe and Africa) and the needs of the community for GEOSS-derived information. The workshop will consist of a series of presentations, breakout sessions and discussions. A report will be written with recommendations for GEOSS.

For more information, refer to the ICEO website:
http://www.ieee-earth.org/events/geoss-workshop-xl-drought-management

Building a User-Driven GEOSS: Methods to Capture, Analyze, and Prioritize User Needs

Authors: Hans-Peter Plag, Lawrence Friedl, Michael Nyenhuis, Francesco Pignatelli
 
Objective: To contribute to a truly user-driven development of GEOSS by discussing the currently applied and other potentially useful approaches to gather user-related needs and information relevant for GEOSS.
Outline: The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) is intended to be user-driven. Therefore, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) through its Committees, Work Plan Tasks, and Communities of Practice (CoPs) has initiated a number of activities directed towards the collection and analysis of user needs and observational requirements. A key goal of these activities is to inform providers and to support a prioritization of Earth observations that have maximum benefits in user communities. The User Interface Committee (UIC) has a leading role in these activities. The workshop will review across all GEO components current activities to assess user-needs, discuss additional activities to be implemented, and consider ways to bring the collected information and analysis results to the providers in an effort to ensure that prioritization is in agreement with identified user needs.
The findings of the Workshop will be summarized in an article to be published in one or more suitable scientific journals.

Airborne LiDAR Data Processing Workshop

Organizers: Nancy Glenn, Rupesh Shrestha, Lucas Spaete

Boise Center Aerospace Laboratory, Department of Geosciences, Idaho State University, Boise, Idaho, USA;

The objectives of the workshop are to provide background on airborne LiDAR data collection, processing, and applications. An emphasis will include height-filtering of raw LiDAR LAS files and developing value-added products from LiDAR point clouds. This workshop is appropriate for new LiDAR users or experienced LiDAR users who would like to learn how to process their own data starting with raw LAS files.
The workshop will cover:   

• Theoretical aspects of airborne LiDAR
• Height filtering raw LiDAR data
• Manipulating and visualizing LAS (point cloud data)
• Developing raster products
• Applications

Ocean Satellite Data Retrieval for Nonspecialists

R.C . Carvalho Tropical Oceanography Group (GOAT) and Coral Reefs and Global Changes Lab (RECOR) /Federal University of Bahia
The objective of this workshop is to disseminate the use of remote sensing data through the use of online ocean/marine websites without being an expert in processing raw data.

This workshop will include an overview of sensors such as MODIS, SeaWifs and others and its applicability in the ocean/marine field. During this workshop attendants will have the opportunity to extract time-series, graphics and maps though the use of visualisation and analyses systems such as GIOVANNI (NASA) and Coral Reef watch (NOAA). As part of the workshop, we plan to provide hands-on experience on data retrieval of parameters such as SST, PAR, CHLOR-a, K490 and so on.

AusCover Data Workshop

Alex Held CSIRO

'AusCover' is an infrastructure facility of TERN, the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, funded by the Australian federal government to facilitate ecosystem research across Australia.

Agriculture Monitoring

Mike Grundy
Theme Leader | Landscape Systems and Trends
CSIRO Sustainable Agriculture Flagship

Agricultural Monitoring:  Workshop Objectives:

• Overview the status and challenges for rangeland/pasture monitoring using earth observations
• Discuss links to the GEO Agriculture Monitoring Task and on initiating a new rangeland task
• Discuss Australian and other examples of dryland agriculture and rangeland/pasture monitoring – and potential links to the GEO Agricultural Monitoring task

Agenda (3.5 hours)

• Welcome and Workshop Objectives (10mins) – Grundy (CSIRO Australia)
• Overview of the GEO Agriculture Monitoring Task and Activities (15 mins) Becker-Reshef (University of Maryland, USA)
• Overview of the current status, priorities and challenges of pasture and rangeland monitoring using EO (20mins) - Caccetta (CSIRO Australia)
• Australia and New Zealand Monitoring Programs
  • Pastures from Space program – Southern Australia (15 mins) - tba
  • AUSSIE-GRASS  and rangelands cover programs – Northern and Eastern Australia (15 mins) - Witte (Department of Environment and Resource Management, Qld Australia)
  • Dairy pastures from space – New Zealand (15 mins) - tba
• Discussion of a new rangelands sub-task to the GEO Agriculture monitoring Task (50 mins)
  • Task objective
  • Priorities and Key issues for pasture monitoring
  • data needs and availability
  • possible sub-tasks/initiatives
  • Building a community of practice
• Dryland Agriculture Monitoring in Australia  and discussion of potential links to the GEO Ag task (Caccetta) (50 mins)
  • Ag Drought monitoring task
  • Links to the current ag initiatives
• Next Steps for GEO Ag Task (20 mins)  - all