Events for September 10, 2015 - April 7, 2016
September 2015
Airborne and Space LiDAR for Forest Inventory
Airborne LiDARs have been used to measure forest canopy characteristics e.g., height, canopy density -‐ for over 30 years. A satellite LiDAR system, ICESat/GLAS, acquired near-global measurements of canopy heights from 2003-2007. These systems provide accurate height and density measurements, but their utility for predicting b/c is more limited because the primary driver for predicting biomass is the diameter of a tree, not its height, and not stand density.
Read MoreSoil Hydrology Across Space and Time – Scale Up and Scale Down
The “Critical Zone” extending from the top of the vegetative canopy through the depth of weathered bedrock plays a central role in Earth’s climate system and provides essential ecosystem services, thereby affecting virtually every aspect of society and the environment. Thus, water stores and fluxes across the critical zone from process scale to management scale are necessary to better account, model, and manage the available water resources.
Read MoreOctober 2015
The Value of Spatial Information and Assessment in Soil, Water and Agricultural Sciences
In soil science, soil development and its association with mass and energy transport, as well as management in agricultural production, has been a highly investigated topic that has included information on soil position in space. In this arena, biophysical models are used to simulate mass and energy fluxes between the soil, plant, and atmosphere and provide a critical link between biological, hydrological and atmospheric disciplines.
Read MoreAdvances in High-Dimensional Remote Sensing of Vegetation
High-dimensional remote-sensing data (e.g., hyperspectral remote-sensor images) and ancillary geospatial data sets can potentially enable extraction of detailed vegetation‐type information, as well as more accurate vegetation biophysical parameter estimates, relative to low-‐dimensional/multispectral data sets. As new sensors become operational, however, improved digital image-processing techniques are needed in order to handle the expected increase in hyperspectral remote-sensor data volume in a computationally efficient manner.
Read MoreNovember 2015
Bathymetry of Shallow Rivers and Streams Using Hyperspectral Imagery and Multispectral LiDAR
This presentation will give a brief overview of the NCALM facility at the University of Houston. Activities at NCALM pertaining to coastal and fluvial remote sensing will be highlighted, including the use of hyperspectral imagery and bathymetric LiDAR for seagrass mapping, depth determination and turbidity estimation.
Read MoreEcometrics Through Space and Time
Ecometrics are trait-based measurements collected at the community level that relate to climatic, environmental, and ecosystem properties. Ecometrics are documented with modern data from distributions of traits within communities and distributions of abiotic conditions.
Read MoreFebruary 2016
Chicxulub Asteroid Impact and the Extinction of Dinosaurs
Crater-forming impacts represent a class of extreme events involving high energy release and short time scales. In this presentation, we analyze the Chicxulub impact and its effects on the Earth´s climate, environment and life-support systems, in relation to the Cretaceous/ Paleogene boundary. The boundary represents one of the major extinction events in the Phanerozoic, which affected about 75 % of species.
Read MoreMarch 2016
Emerging Scientific, Technological, and Industrial Challenges and Opportunities for the Mexican Space Agency
The Agencia Espacial Mexicana, (AEM) Mexico’s space agency, was created in 2010 to promote academic and industrial activity in Mexico related to space sciences and to contribute to the country’s scientific, technological, industrial and economic development. One of its priorities is to explore the use of satellite technology to provide early warning to the population in the event of natural disasters, to track the effects of global warming, and to predict the spread of diseases, among others.
Read MoreSearch for the Malaysia Flight MH-370: Survey Strategy and Technology
This presentation documents the deep water search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH-370, a Boeing 777 commercial passenger airliner that mysteriously disappeared in the southern Indian Ocean, in March 2014 with 239 people onboard.
Read MoreApril 2016
Stochastic Design of an Early Warning System
Stochastic Design of an Early Warning System:
From Integrating Multiple Sources of Evidence Varying in Real Time (Data, Model Predictions and Experts' Beliefs), to the Release of "The Wave" (Now in Theaters)