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NASA Research Announcement 97-MTPE-05
Center of Excellence in Applications of Remote Sensing to Regional and Global Integrated Environmental Assessments
Research Overview
"POPULATION-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS: AN INTEGRATED PROGRAM OF RESEARCH, INSTRUCTION, AND TRAINING THROUGH REMOTE SENSING APPLICATIONS"
1997-1999
Principal Investigator:
Stephen J. Walsh
Department of Geography &
Carolina Population Center
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3220
USA
Co-Investigators:
Ronald R. Rindfuss, UNC-CH – Sociology & Carolina Pop. Center
Barbara Entwisle, UNC-CH – Sociology & Carolina Pop. Center
Richard E. Bilsborrow, UNC-CH – Biostatistics & Carolina Pop. Center
Lawrence E. Band, UNC-CH - Geography
Aaron Moody, UNC-CH - Geography
PROJECT SUMMARY
A major challenge facing the scientific community is to link people to landcover dynamics and ecosystem processes, and to do so at the appropriate spatial and temporal scales so that the behavior of individuals, households, communities, districts, and regions can be linked to changes in landuse/landcover types, landscape state or conditions, and associated ecosystem processes. Population and environment interactions are often conceptualized as people forcing change on the environment. However, there are also important feedbacks of environmental forcing factors upon human behavior. These could be human forced changes to the environment that in turn result in feedbacks upon subsequent human behavior. Or, there could be exogenous environmental effects upon human behavior that may interact with current environmental contexts but which are beyond human control. Whereas remotely sensed data capture change in landcover, such data can provide indirect information about changes in landuse. Demographic and socioeconomic information acquired through population surveys and linked to multi-temporal satellite data offers an analytical framework for examining the interaction of population and environment. The interaction of population-environment is an emerging research paradigm that treats people, pixels, and the landscape in a collective and integrative fashion, cuts across customary institutional boundaries of research and training, and recognizes that people are important actors on the landscape that shape and are shaped by the environment.
This proposal describes a collaborative program between the Department of Geography and the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina to develop a Center of Excellence in the Study of Population-Environment Interactions through the application of remote sensing technology and the integration of population survey data combined with GIS, spatial analysis, and demographic techniques. The proposed program seeks to integrate in a fundamental way satellite image processing for landuse/landcover assessment, classification, and modeling with population survey data at individual, household, community, and regional levels to examine behavioral, geographic, and environmental hypotheses about population-environment interactions at domestic and international sites. The program will be developed by expanding upon a fledgling satellite image processing and GIS facility operated within the Carolina Population Center and by developing a Spectral Field Lab within the Department of Geography. The training programs within both the Carolina Population Center and the Department of Geography will be developed to promote links among population, environment, and remote sensing. The training programs will emphasize both university course-work and mentoring through a formal pairing of trainees with faculty. This proposal focuses on the strengths of each of the units -- Geography for its programmatic focus in remote sensing, GIS, spatial analysis, and environmental assessment and modeling, and the Carolina Population Center for its national prominence in population studies and demography.The Carolina Population Center is requesting funds to expand its Spatial Analysis Unit through a purchase of a high-level UNIX server and five workstations and software that will be dedicated to spectral/spatial analyses and associated integration of population and environment data. The proposed purchase meets the major computing needs with one efficient, cost-effective, integrated system. The Department of Geography is requesting funds to purchase two high-level UNIX workstations and a complement of field and lab equipment (e.g. spectroradiometers, plant canopy analyzer, leaf area meters, digital cameras, and GPS units) for the development of a Spectral Field Lab that is dedicated to the measurement of in-situ environmental features and characteristics associated with the calibration, verification, and assessment of remote sensing spectral responses and their associated biophysical relationships.
RESEARCH ACTIVITIESThe following describes two major population-environment research projects that we are pursuing, one taking place in the Ecuadorian Amazon and the other in Northeast Thailand. Both projects are comprehensive in their treatment of population-environment interactions, are grounded in environmental analyses and population interactions through remote sensing, GIS, spatial analysis, and population survey data, and involve a partnership between the Department of Geography and the Carolina Population Center. The projects are briefly described as to their purpose and specific research aims. They are prototypical of the population-environment research to be examined under this program, and which will serve as the basis for student training through formal classroom instruction through the Departments of Geography, Sociology, and elsewhere on campus, and pre-doctoral and post-doctoral training through a remote sensing practicum within the Spatial Analysis Unit of the Carolina Population Center. Thus far, funds have been acquired from NASA, NIH, MacArthur Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and the University of North Carolina to support population-environment interactions at the Carolina Population Center and the Department of Geography through research and training collaboration. Cost-sharing for the proposed program will be provided through internal funding at the Carolina Population Center and from resources made available through the Office of the Provost and the College of Arts and Sciences to the Department of Geography.
Population-Environment: Research and Training Structure
The Carolina Population Center (CPC) offers training programs for pre-doctoral and post-doctoral population scholars to develop skills relevant to population research. All CPC pre-doctoral trainees must be enrolled in programs leading to a doctoral degree at UNC-CH. The keystone in each is a close individual working relationship between the trainee and a specific faculty preceptor. Reflecting the unique interdisciplinary nature of the Center, CPC trainees and faculty are drawn from many departments. The 31 CPC pre-doctoral trainees selected for 1995-96 are enrolled in 10 different academic departments. Professional positions of former trainees reflect their diversity and the value of the training for academic and applied research responsibilities. Among the CPC trainees who have completed their doctoral degrees in recent years, about one-half hold faculty positions in colleges and universities and most of the remainder work in applied research settings.
At present, we do not have a formal training program on population and the environment. Rather, the Carolina Population Center has a population training program (funded by NIH, the Mellon Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation) and the Department of Geography has a training program in the environment, with an emphasis on the physical environment (funded by a variety of research projects and departmental funds). In the past two to three years, students in each program have become interested in the union of the two as represented by population and development. These graduate students and post-docs, in consultation with their advisors, have been taking courses from the other program, attending the other program's seminars, and working on research practica in the other program. This cross-fertilization, reflecting the interests of the faculty co-investigators on this project, has worked well. For example, the first student to do so expects to finish his PhD during the coming academic year and already has a post-doc offer from Indiana University to work in a program that involves the environment, remote sensing, and population.
As this cross-over is maturing in our own research and the training of our students, we are considering applying for training funds specifically targeted for graduate students and post-docs who would work with us at the intersection of population and the environment. We have not yet developed a formal application, but have begun discussions of the nature of such a program. Below is an illustration of our current thinking. Each CPC pre-doctoral trainee working in the Population-Environment Focus would likely meet the following requirements:
Description of the Research Equipment and Needs•complete a two-term course in basic demography before or during the 1st year as a trainee
•complete a two-course sequence in Geography 177 (Introduction to Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing) and either Geography 191 (Technical Issues in GIS), Geography 192 (Applied Issues in GIS), or Geography 277 (Advanced Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing)
•complete two other approved population courses (at least one which is an advanced, 200 level or higher course) by the end of the 2nd year as a trainee
•complete two other approved environment courses (at least one which is an advanced, 200 level or higher course) by the end of the 2nd year as a trainee
•participate for at least 12 hours a week in a continuing research population practicum supervised by a designated CPC Faculty Research Fellow
•participate for at least 12 hours a week for one semester in a continuing research environment/remote sensing practicum in the Spectral Field Lab and/or the Spatial Analysis Lab, Department of Geography or the Spatial Analysis Unit, Carolina Population Center co-supervised by a designated CPC Faculty Research Fellow and by the Lab/Unit director
•participate regularly in the weekly CPC and/or Geography seminar series
•receive instruction in the ethical conduct of research, participating in at least four approved seminars, classes, or lectures during the appointment year
•population-environment focus for research undertaken for a thesis or dissertation
The equipment to be assembled in both the Spatial Analysis Lab, Carolina Population Center and the Spectral Field Lab, Department of Geography will collectively support the research, instruction, and training within the population-environment program emphasizing pre-doctoral (Masters and Doctoral degree programs) and post-doctoral students. The remote sensing facility within the Department of Geography supports a broad array of environmental and social/cultural research efforts within the department, and so it does not have sufficient remaining capacity to accommodate this proposed initiative. The Carolina Population Center and the Department of Geography are in an excellent position to work together cooperatively. The Carolina Population Center is a research center within UNC-CH. It does not hire faculty nor admit students; these activities are the responsibility of departments. Rather, the Carolina Population Center is structured to assist the research and training activities of any faculty member with an interest in population studies. The Department of Geography is a classic department, with faculty, students, and courses. The two units have a long history of collaboration, and since 1994 Steve Walsh has directed the spatial units in both, insuring coordination and cooperation between them. The geography Lab is in a position to complement the activities of the Carolina Population Center in population-environment studies because of the redundancy of geography faculty involved in the department lab and the investigators on this proposed program. The implication is that the Geography Lab can support but not lead the efforts in population-environment interactions because it has a broader departmental research and instructional mandate, and so the Spatial Analysis Unit, Carolina Population Center will assume the responsibility for remote sensing image processing to support this research and mentoring program, outside of that required in conjunction with the Special Field Lab performed by the Department of Geography.
(1) Carolina Population Center Spatial Analysis Unit
The Carolina Population Center, founded in 1966, has become one of the top five population research centers in the world. It has 47 faculty fellows from 17 departments at UNC-CH. The Center is characterized by interdisciplinary collegiality, and numerous interdisciplinary projects. Reviewers unfamiliar with the Carolina Population Center and desiring additional information are invited to visit our web site: http://www.cpc.unc.edu. Among population research centers, the Carolina Population Center has a reputation for innovation, and in keeping with this reputation was the first population research center to make the concepts, tools, and data from remote sensing and GIS available to its researchers.
The Spatial Analysis Unit was developed in 1994 to provide geographic database discovery and development, processing and analysis of satellite digital data, GIS product generation and spatial analysis, GPS use for linking individual-, household-, and community-level survey data to geographically-referenced information sources, and cartographic design and data visualization in support of population, demographic, and population-environment research and training.
The demand at the Carolina Population Center for services and facilities within the Spatial Analysis Unit has substantially increased. In fact, additional space is currently being renovated for the Unit, funded by the University, and a third analyst has just been hired to meet the demand. While the University provided the initial support to develop the Unit, external funds are necessary to create the necessary computing infrastructure and capability to expand into the population-environment area through this program of research and training. The existing facilities, hardware and software, are appropriate in their technical specifications for remote sensing image processing. The processing speed, image resolution for graphical display, and memory requirements have been beta-tested at CPC through projects involving Landsat TM and MSS, Spot PAN and MX, and assorted GIS coverages including DEMs and social data at household and village levels. While appropriate now, it is clear that expanded facilities will be needed within the next 18 months to keep up with the demand that is being generated. Five additional high-end workstations and a server, teamed with state-of-the-art image processing, GIS, and data visualization software, will offer a sophisticated laboratory dedicated to population-environment questions and addressed in a spatially-explicit framework. The development of facilities through a comprehensive acquisition is central to the development of a program that emphasizes this emergent field of social and biophysical inquiry.
(a) Spatial Data Processing: Hardware Configuration The following is a description of the equipment, software, and supplies to be acquired in conjunction with this proposed program.(b) Spatial Data Processing: Software Configuration•1 IBM RS/6000 hardware model F40 2-way processor, file server running at 253 MHz, with 256 MB of memory, and with 27 GB storage for remote sensing images and map products.
•5 IBM RS/6000 workstations, each running at 332 MHz with 385 MB of memory, and 4.5 GB of disk storage. A high-resolution monitor and a 24-bitgraphics card is included.
•the ethernet adapters have a 10/100 megabit capacity, to allow faster throughput between the workstation and the server and to the network of servers at CPC.
•the disk controllers are SCSI-2 fast/wide adapters.
•a 5/10 GB tape backup system to provide compressed backup of the data on the disk subsystems.
•Uninterrupted power supplies (UPS) will be installed on the server and workstations to provide conditioned power to the systems and to allow a controlled shut-down routine if power is disrupted.
• Epson 826XL color image scanner
• 5 Dell Pentium II computers (4-desktops and 1-laptop)
•A Hewlett-Packard Jet 650 large format plotter.
•Calcomp graphic digitizer, large format.
•Tektronix Phaser 350 color printer
•10 Trimble Navigation GeoExplorer II GPS Receivers
•1 Sony digital camera
ARC/INFO (5)•
•S-PLUS with the GIS module (5)
•SAS statistical software (5)
•Stata statistical software (5)
•PCI image processing software (5)
•ERDAS Imagine, image processing (7)
•Fragstats for pattern analysis (1)
•AVS data visualization software (2)
The software is dedicated to remote sensing image processing, GIS, statistical and spatial analysis, and data visualization.
(2) Department of GeographyThe Spatial Analysis Lab is housed on the third floor of Saunders Hall. As of January 1999 the labs have undergone an extensive renovation that have improved the climate of the lab with the addtion of new lights, carpet and furniture.
The facilities of the lab consist mainly of Sun Microsystems UNIX workstations as the primary computing platform, and are supported by DELL Intel-based Personal Computers using the Windows NT operating system. The labs include access to various input and output devices as well as a collection of field equipment and software.
The Spatial Analysis Labs, as well as the rest of Saunders Hall, is wired internally to support the latest network technology. Buidling wide wiring was installed in 1993 with Category 5 UTP cable to support data transfer speeds of 155mb/sec and all offices and labs are supported with the minimum of 10BaseT switched Ethernet. With the help of our on campus networking support group, the Spatial Analysis Labs have been able to take advantage of Fast Ethernet 100BaseT technology for those platforms that support it.
Currently the Spatial Analysis group uses approximatly 70 gigabytes of on-line storage which is served by a Sun Microsystems SPARCstation 10 NFS file server. In addtion to this resource, the lab has recently included services provided by ATN via the Distributed Computing Initiative and now gains access to RAID 5 file service and a large base of public domian software, compilers and software development tools, and statistical and mathematical packages. In addtion to internal departmental resources any student in the lab may make use of other on-campus resources such as public computer labs and the statistical and compute platforms (a Sun Enterprise 6000 with 12 CPUs and 5GB of RAM and a SGI Origin 2000 with 16 CPUs and 8GB of RAM respectively) maintained by the University.
Available Workstations:Input/Output Devices:
Tektronix Phaser 360 Color Ink Jet Printer
Field and Spectral Equipment:
Trimble Navigation GeoExplorer II GPS Unit (4)
LI-1800 Carrying Case
LI-1800/DOS
LI-1800 PC/AT Cable
Fiber Optic Probe
Remote Cosine Receptor
Integrating Sphere,PWR Supply
Plant Canopy Analyzer System
Plant Canopy Analyzer Sensor
LAI Console
Extension Cable for LAI-2050
Quantum Sensor
Portable Terminal
LI-190SA Quantum Sensor (10 ft)
LI-250 Light Meter
#2290 MV Adapter
#2003S Mounting/Leveling
#2222SB Extension Cable (50ft)
LI-1400 Data Logger
#1400-320 Storage Case
#1400-310 LI-1400 Mounting Brack
#1400-403 LI-1400 Ex. Battery Pack
#1400-550 RS-232 DTE
Software:
- ARC/INFO 7.2.1
- ArcView 3.1
- ERDAS Imagine 8.3
- PCI 6.2
- ESRI Institutional Site License (e.g. ARC/INFO and ARCVIEW)
- ERDAS Imagine 8.3 (23 seats); ERDAS Orthomax and Sub-Pixel (1)
- ER Mapper 5.1 (10 seats)
- IPW
- AVS 5.0.2 (1 seat), GRASS 4.1 (5 seats), SAS 6.0.9 (25 seats), S-Plus 3.2 (25 seats)
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Premiere
- Palm Pilot III
- Claris Works
- Palm III Modem
- Endnotes
- Access database
- Apple Colorsync 17 inch display
- Fragstats Software (1)
- Multimedia and videography