Project Leader:
Mr. Mickelson
(jmickels@ciesin.columbia.edu)
Locations: United States of America
Special Locations:
NY/NJ Metropolitan Region
Description:
Researchers at CIESIN, Black Rock Forest and Wildlife Trust are embarking on a land cover mapping project containing the greater NY/NJ/CT metro region (see NY Bioscape Project). At the most basic level, we are seeking to improve the spatial and thematic detail of digital land cover/vegetation information available to a number of disciplines within the region. Applications earmarked for such data products include everything from simple inventory needs to forest/resource management and ecoregional planning efforts to more intricate ecological modeling (climate change, biodiversity trends) and faunal habitat dynamic (GAP) assessments. At the very least we urgently need to establish adequate biotic baseline from which future change and impact assessments can be measured against. Encouraging trends in both satellite data pricing structures and computer hard/software capabilities have combined to enable the types of repeatable, cost-effective, landscape scale assessments that such baselines can be extended from.
EI Unit:
Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)
Cross Cutting Themes:
Ecosystems
Core Disciplines:
Earth Sciences
Project Web Site:
http://www.ciesin.org/
Collaborating Institutions:
Wildlife Trust
Black Rock Forest
Funding Agency:
CERC
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