Candidate Solutions
Overview | Publications | GIS | Candidate Solutions
Candidate Solutions
The National Aeronautical and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) Earth Science Program is designed to help develop a better scientific understanding of the earth and how it responds to both human and environmentally induced changes. NASA utilizes satellites, aerial platforms, and models to view the earth and its processes and to measure and predict changes. NASA’s Applied Science Program harnesses large quantities of NASA data and information and provides it to various institutions and the public, thereby allowing us to better understand and mange these processes and changes. This program is currently focused on providing data and information in the six priority areas below.
- Agricultural Efficiency
- Water Management
- Public Health
- Disaster Management
- Ecological Forecasting
- Air Quality
Each of these areas has relevance to agriculture, Resource Conservation and Development Councils, and other user groups throughout the United States. Which areas are most relevant to an individual or organization will depend on the specific location, activities, issues and needs of a particular individual or organization. However, it is NASA’s desire to make its data and tools accessible to all individuals and organizations who can utilize them to better understand and manage their natural resources and protect the environment. Additional information on each of these and other NASA Applied Sciences priority areas can be found at: http://science.hq.nasa.gov/earth-sun/applications/
Woodruff, D., E. Chadd, R. Knapp, J. Ward and D. Barry. 2009. Linking Watershed Impacts to Biological Indicators of Stream Health on the North Olympic Peninsula, Washington State. North Olympic Peninsula Solutions Network Report 09-01. Center of Excellence, Peninsula College.
Abstract
Remotely sensed imagery and other spatially referenced datasets can provide powerful tools for documenting change, understanding land use, and examining spatial connectivity with respect to aquatic ecosystem health. As development pressures continue to increase and impact aquatic resources, the need for proactive modeling of watershed processes will continue to grow. Such modeling will depend in part on the ability to functionally relate measures of ecosystem health (e.g., stream health data) to watershed disturbance. NASA remotely-sensed imagery has a key role to play in the successful development of these watershed disturbance models. We are proposing to incorporate NASA land-use/land-cover imagery (Landsat, ASTER) from several time periods into a GIS-based framework to examine watershed processes at several scales, to develop a model that links watershed disturbance to stream health. NASA land use/land cover imagery will be incorporated into a watershed disturbance model to more effectively link land use/land cover to a long-term data set of biological indicators of stream health on the north Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Quantitative chemical, physical, and biological stream health data have been collected at a number of stream sites in the Peninsula’s 17 major watersheds since 1997. Of concern in these once-pristine areas are issues of degraded water quality, development pressure, and compromised salmon habitat. Stream biological health, in this case, is measured using benthic macroinvertebrate information that is incorporated into a multi-metric Benthic Index of Biological integrity (B-IBI), which measures end response variables of biological degradation and environmental disturbance. The ultimate goal of this project is to identify areas of the landscape that are important to protect for water quality and stream health, as well as characterize impairment based on human activity. Using NASA imagery we will be able to develop and improve an applied stream health forecasting and assessment model in a number of ways, including examining impacts of land use change over time and improving land cover classifications for this geographic region (e.g. higher spatial resolution for multiple-scale analysis, refining land cover types), as well as evaluating issues of spatial arrangement of land cover types, interdependence among landcover classes, and spatial autocorrelation. This Candidate Solution will focus on developing tools to more accurately link upland landscape/watershed processes to stream health through B-IBI indicators on the north Olympic Peninsula, which can then be transferred to watersheds in other parts of the country. Developments made through this Candidate Solution have the potential for advancing similar programs across the country, utilizing NASA imagery as a key component.
Ward, J, M. Wigmosta, T. Randall, A. Coleman, D. Barry, and C. Rome 2008. Development of a Decision-Support Tool to Support Restoration Efforts on the Elwha River, Washington State. North Olympic Peninsula Solutions Network Report 08-04. Center of Excellence, Peninsula College.
Abstract
The North Olympic Peninsula Solutions Network proposes to develop a decision support tool (DST) to support large-scale restoration and emergency management in watersheds. The use of NASA technology to support watershed-scale hydrological and sediment-transport modeling will improve the existing decision-making abilities of regulatory agencies, resource managers, and researchers tasked with restoring watersheds, rivers, and nearshore areas. The proposed DST would support three NASA priority areas: Ecological Forecasting, Water Resources, and Disaster Management, and would be deployed on the Elwha River in Washington State, the site of the largest hydroelectric dam removal and ecosystem restoration ever attempted in the world. The removal of two decommissioned hydroelectric dams will restore natural hydrologic processes to approximately 80 miles of habitat that has been unavailable for nearly a century. One of the key challenges will be to predict the fate and transport of sediment that has accumulated behind the two dams. By linking a hybrid hydrological model that currently uses NASA technology to predict streamflow to a sediment transport model developed by the US Bureau of Reclamation, our team proposes to create a DST that will provide a real-time, predictive tool to ensure worker and public safety during the dam removal process, assist fisheries managers in restoring depleted salmon runs, and support environmental monitoring and assessment programs designed to evaluate restoration options and progress. Because streamflow and sediment transport strongly influence ecosystem biodiversity and sustainability, and are also linked to flood and landslide events, the DST would provide valuable information to a variety of resource managers and stakeholders, and be applicable to other large-scale dam removal projects in the United States and elsewhere in the world. Deployment of the DST in support of the Elwha dam removal action is especially important because over 80% of the affected watershed is within Olympic National Park, a World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve. Further, a significant portion of the river mouth and nearshore areas are owned and occupied by the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe.
Wigmosta, M., A. Coleman, J. Ward, and C. Rome. 2008. Use of ASTER to Improve the Hybrid-Modis DST. North Olympic Peninsula Solutions Network Report 08-03. Center of Excellence, Peninsula College.
Abstract
Environmental managers need accurate streamflow information to make informed decisions concerning the allocation of scarce freshwater resources in snowmelt-dominated watersheds. Currently, the decision support system (DSS) used to estimate streamflow in the western United States is provided by the Natural Resource Conservation Service Northwest Water and Climate Center (NRCS-NWCC) and relies on statistical analysis of historical flow coupled with limited real-time environmental measurements. This DSS is capable of providing a probabilistic estimate of the total volume of water that may be available over a two- to six-month period, but cannot provide information on daily or weekly flows, or estimate changes in flow regime associated with ng-term climatic changes. Thus, water resource managers using this DSS are often faced with uncertainties associated with streamflow forecast issues such as temporal scale, and a lack of information on peak flows, low flows, and drought. In addition, the NRCS predictions cannot be used to assess the impacts of climate change on water availability. To improve this DSS, the North Olympic Peninsula Solutions Network (NOPSN) linked a Hybrid hydrological model developed under the NASA-sponsored Pacific Northwest Research Collaboratory to a spatial data product obtained from NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The resulting Hybrid-MODIS decision-support tool (DST) has improved streamflow forecasting in the Dungeness watershed by providing both short-term (daily and weekly) and long-term (seasonal) ensemble streamflow predictions. The DST is also able to evaluate streamflow under various climate change scenarios. The existence of this DST will provide resource agencies, stakeholders, and members of the public with real-time and predictive information to support their decisions, and augment and improve the existing DSS provided by NRCS-NWCC. During the development of the Hybrid-MODIS DST, the project team also explored whether the use of other NASA sensor systems or data products would improve the DST performance. This candidate solution describes the result of our investigation, which suggests avenues for improved forecasting by this DST, such as incorporating a variety of products based on NASA’s ASTER platform.
More detailed information can be found in NOPSN report 08-01, which can be found on our Reports and Publications page.