I wanted to send out a friendly reminder that the data submission deadline for the current data call is March 31, 2016. Data submitted before March 31 are evaluated for inclusion in the appropriate update cycle, and submissions after March 31 are typically considered in subsequent updates.
This is the last call for vegetation/fuel plot data that can be used for the upcoming LANDFIRE Remap. If you have any plot data you would like to contribute please submit the data by March 31 in order to guarantee the data will be evaluated for inclusion in the LF2015 Remap. LANDFIRE is also accepting contributions of polygon data from 2015/2016 for disturbance and treatment activities. Please see the attached data call letter for more information.
Brenda Lundberg, Senior Scientist
Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies (SGT, Inc.)
Contractor to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
Earth Resources Observation & Science (EROS) Center
Phone: 406.329.3405
Email: blundberg@usgs.gov
/span>Developing data-driven solutions in the face of rapid global change
Global environmental change poses critical environmental and societal needs, and the next generation of students are part of the future solutions. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) in Data Science for the 21st Century prepares graduate students at the University of California Berkeley with the skills and knowledge needed to evaluate how rapid environmental change impacts human and natural systems and to develop and evaluate data-driven solutions in public policy, resource management, and environmental design that will mitigate negative effects on human well-being and the natural world. Trainees will research topics such as management of water resources, regional land use, and responses of agricultural systems to economic and climate change, and develop skills in data visualization, informatics, software development, and science communication.
In a final semester innovative team-based problem-solving course, trainees will collaborate with an external partner organization to tackle a challenge in global environmental change that includes a significant problem in data analysis and interpretation of impacts and solutions. This collaboration is a fundamental and distinguishing component of the NRT program. We hope this collaboration will not only advance progress on the grand challenges of national and global importance, but also be memorable and useful for the trainees, and for the partners.
An Invitation to Collaborate
We are inviting collaboration with external partners to work with our students on their Team Research Project in 2016-17. Our students would greatly benefit from working with research agencies, non-profits, and industry.
- Our first cohort of 14 students come from seven different schools across campus, each bringing new skillsets, backgrounds, and perspectives.
- Team projects will be designed and executed in the spring of 2017.
- Partners are welcome to visit campus, engage with students and take part in our project activities.
- Join us at our first annual symposium on May 6th 4-7 pm.
- Participate in workplace/ campus exchange.
- Contact the program coordinator at hconstable@berkeley.edu
- Visit us at http://ds421.berkeley.edu/ for more information.
This new NSF funded DS421 program is in the first of 5 years. We look forward to building ongoing collaborations with partners and UC Berkeley.
Awesome new (ish?) R package from the gang over at rOpenSci
Tired of searching biodiversity occurance data through individual platforms? The "spocc" package comes to your rescue and allows for a streamlined workflow in the collection and mapping of species occurrence data from range of sites including: GBIF, iNaturalist, Ecoengine, AntWeb, eBird, and USGS's BISON.
There is a caveat however, since the sites use alot of the same repositories the authors of the package caution to check for dulicates. Regardless what a great way to simplify your workflow!
Find the package from CRAN: install.packages("spocc") and read more about it here!
/span>Just got off a call with a group of people focusing on historical data discovery at the Natural Reserve System (NRS). This process is part of the recently funded Institute for the Study of Ecological Effects of Climate Impacts (ISEECI). People in the group include:
- Peter Alagona, historical ecologist, UCSB
- Jessica Blois, paleoecologist, UCM
- John Christensen, UCLA
- Jeffrey Diez, ecologist, UCR
- Becca Fenwick, ecologist, UCM
- Laurel Fox, UCSC
- Lynn McLaren, UCSC
- Peter Moyle, UCD
Of particular note was the introduction of the Online Archive of California, which is a collection of metadata about historical archives. Peter is adding all his data to the OAC. His work was funded through a Research Opportunity Fund grant through UCOP, and a NSF grant. The process the NRS has used is different than what we have done with the REC data. They have assembled metadata from the research reports from the stations, and full digitization can be opportunisic and focused on particular questions. There is a Zotero database of publications that have resulted from the reserves.
I don't use ocean color data, but found this report of interest nonetheless. From the HICO website. HICO is the Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean.
HICO Operations Ended. March 20, 2015 In September 2014 during an X-class solar storm, HICO’s computer took a severe radiation hit, from which it never recovered. Over the past several months, engineers at NRL and NASA have attempted to restart the computer and have conducted numerous tests to find alternative pathways to communicate with it. None of these attempts have been successful. So it is with great sadness that we bid a fond farewell to HICO. Yet we rejoice that HICO performed splendidly for five years, despite being built in only 18 months from non space-hardened, commercial-off-the-shelf parts for a bargain price. Having met all its Navy goals in the first year, HICO was granted a two-year operations extension from the Office of Naval Research and then NASA stepped in to sponsor this ISS-based sensor, extending HICO’s operations another two years. All told, HICO operated for 5 years, during which it collected approximately 10,000 hyperspectral scenes of the earth. Most of the HICO scenes taken over sites worldwide are available now, and will remain accessible to researchers through two websites: http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and http://hico.coas.oregonstate.edu. HICO will live on through research conducted by scientists using HICO data, especially studies exploring the complexities of the world’s coastal oceans.