T212 Community Remote Sensing: A New Approach for Geoscience Applications

Tuesday, 2 November 2010
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Hall F

DIGITAL EARTH WATCH AND PICTURE POSTS: MEASURING THE ENVIRONMENT THROUGH DIGITAL IMAGES

Paper number: T212-8
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 3:15 PM – 3:30 PM

Authors

Abstract

A network of locations for citizen scientists to take a consistent time sequence of digital photographs of the landscape and a web site that stores and distributes the digital images creates a low-cost and sustainable resource for scientific environmental monitoring and formal and informal science education. This is the Digital Earth Watch (DEW) and Picture Post Network. Digital photographs taken from the same location and positioned in the same direction and orientation allow individuals, schools, organizations, communities and scientists to monitor a variety of environmental parameters, including plant health, growth, and phenology; erosion and deposition; water levels; and cloud and canopy cover. The Picture Post platform is simply an octagon placed in the center of a flat surface and secured to a post anchored in the ground or onto a building. The edges of the octagon allow positioning of the camera so the complete landscape may be photographed in less than a minute. A “virtual” Picture Post application is being developed that will turn a mobile phone into a Picture Post.

DEW provides educational activities and background materials that help people learn about plants as environmental “green canaries” and about the basics of digital image capture and image analysis. A key message in DEW is that although plants are dynamic and respond continuously to their environment, they do so either on a time-scale that most people don’t notice or with a subtlety our senses can’t detect. DEW has created simple tools for enhancing pictures so that users can easily detect and measure change-over-time and compare conditions on the ground with daily MODIS satellite imagery from NASA. Individually, Picture Posts capture the local environment; collectively a national or worldwide network of Picture Posts creates a broad global picture that supports scientific research and promotes environmental stewardship. URL: http://picturepost.unh.edu/