|
GIScience Research at Oregon State
Benefits for the State of Oregon and Beyond...
A Sampling of Research Projects
The Oregon Coastal Atlas - www.coastalatlas.net
PISCO - Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (including the science of marine reserves) - www.piscoweb.org
A Digital Earth - dusk.geo.orst.edu/de
Alternative Futures for Agricultural Watersheds - bufo.geo.orst.edu/tc/firma/ip
Modeling the Interaction of Landslides, Debris Flows, and River Channel Networks - www.fsl.orst.edu/~slancast/agusprin.html
Watersheds Analyses - www.earthdesign.com/rockcreek/rockcreek.html
Remote Sensing in Ecology - www.fsl.orst.edu/larse
The China Atlas - www.ocs.oregonstate.edu/books_maps/china_book/china_book.html
- OSU Ranked #1 nationally in forest ecology, top 15 in other branches of ecology
Spatial Analysis in Forest Engineering - www.cof.orst.edu/fe/research/gis
as well as...
The Global Grid Project - This research, sponsored by the U.S. EPA, addresses improved cartographic methods for sampling and analyzing environmental phenomena across the globe. The focus is on alternative ways of partitioning the globe into sampling units. Using a rigorous statistical approach, these alternatives make possible accurate counting and statistical analyses of trees, owls, whales, or any other populations. Sampling systems have been optimized for the State of Oregon, the rest of the U.S., and now our scientists are now receiving requests from international agencies.
Principal contact: Dr. Jon Kimerling, OSU Geosciences, bufo.geo.orst.edu/tc/firma
Key words: Global mapping and sampling, natural resources management, information management
Coastal Landscape Analysis and Modeling Study (CLAMS) - OSU and the U.S. Forest Service have funded this large interdisciplinary study in order to predict vegetation patterns in 5-year increments. Using Landsat satellite imagery, land ownership data, advanced geographic information system (GIS) techniques, and knowledge of how land owners currently manage their lands, the project is developing forest stand simulation models for deriving future vegetation conditions, which can then be incorporated into resource management policies to increase their effectiveness. CLAMS will be critical to the effective implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan and the Governor's Salmon Initiative.
Principal contacts:Dr. Tom Spie and Keith Olsen (GIS), OSU Forest Science, www.fsl.orst.edu/clams
Key words: Satellite mapping, GIS, stream ecology, forest policy, biodiversity
Future Scenarios for Muddy Creek Watershed, Benton County, Oregon - This EPA-funded project, a collaboration between OSU Geosciences, and the University of Oregon Institute for a Sustainable Environment, illustrates a unique framework and methodology for helping local communities to create alternative scenarios for land conservation and development. Using a representative region within the Willamette Valley and working with the people who actually reside and make their living in the area, the project creates a spectrum of futures depicting conservation and development scenarios in varying intensities, locations, and with resulting effects on biodiversity and water quality. A myriad of data from satellites, demographic surveys, land surveys, hydrological and ecological studies, etc. was integrated, run through statistical models and mapped with a GIS.
Principal contact: Mr. Denis White, EPA,
Key words: Land use planning, water quality, biodiversity, satellite mapping, GIS
El Nino Hazard Mapping - Various researchers at OSU are monitoring Oregon coast shoreline changes due to El Nino-Southern Oscillation events, as well as mapping and modeling storm-induced landslide events directly on the coast and in the Coast Range.
Principal contact: Mr. George Taylor, OSU Atmospheric Sciences and Spatial Climate Analysis Service, www.ocs.orst.edu/reports/enso_pnw.html
Key words: El Nino, hazard mapping, coastal management, disaster response
Don't Forget the Ocean! Various researchers at OSU are mapping earthquake activity off the Oregon coast, benthic habitats for fisheries, characterizing the shoreline and the seafloor with maps of unprecedented detail, and developing marine data models for GIS
Principal contact: Dr. Dawn Wright, OSU Geoscience, http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/djl
Principal contact: Dr. Chris Goldfinger, OSU Oceanography, http://activetectonics.coas.oregonstate.edu/
Key words: ocean mapping/management/protection, earthquakes, whales, tsunami hazard mitigation, fisheries, habitat, marine protected areas
Climate Mapping with PRISM - PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) is an analytical model that uses point data and a digital elevation model (DEM) to generate gridded estimates of monthly and event-based climatic parameters. Originally developed for precipitation estimation, PRISM has been generalized and applied successfully to temperature, among other parameters. OSU scientists working PRISM are currently collaborating with the USDA National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the NOAA National Climatic Data Center. Their work with the NRCS has attracted the attention of the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, as their the project will be providing the entire United States with basic GIS data layers for all the major climatic elements. In addition, the National Cartographic Center in Fort Worth, Texas will be mass-producing thousands of high-quality cartographic climate maps for every county in the United States from these data layers.
Principal contact: Dr. Chris Daly, OSU Geosciences and Spatial Climate Service, www.ocs.orst.edu/prism/prism_new.html
Key words: climate mapping and modeling, GIS, landslide potential, precipitation
UCGIS National Research Priorities: Recent Topics Submitted by Oregon State in 2002
As a member of the UCGIS, the Oregon State geographic information science community was asked to cooperatively prepare our contribution to a national discussion on GIS research priorities. We were invited to submit a jointly developed set of topics that we felt were priority areas for research, and that emphasized particular research strengths at Oregon State. These challenges are meant to specify potential GIS research contributions directly applicable to national needs, and thus may be used by the UCGIS in our national lobbying activities. Proposed topics could have been in the realm of basic science, applied science, technology, or policy. Oregon State's topics were:
Upon submission to the UCGIS Research Committee, our nominated topics were combined with those of other member institutions. The consolidated list formed the basis for deliberations at the UCGIS Summer Assembly that was held in Athens, Georgia. Both of the submissions by Oregon State were very well received. The web GIS topic was discussed in the "Multimedia/Visualization" breakout session at the Summer Assembly,
while the global grids topic was discussed in the "Global Databases" breakout. Both topics were folded into the UCGIS's list of national Short-term Research Priorities. Web GIS is part of the "Pervasive Computing" priority and global grids is part of the "Global Representation and Modeling" priority. 2-page flyers about these priorities were available at the UCGIS Congressional and Federal Agency briefings, and will be the focus of future research, publication and funding efforts.
Pervasive Computing Flyer (pdf)
Global Representation and Modeling (pdf)
Other Priorities
|
