# Presentation: 784781

## NASA’s Earth Science Vision for 2025 calls for significant advances in our Ecological Forecasting capabilities * 

An ecological forecast predicts the impacts of biological, chemical, and physical changes on ecosystems, ecosystem components, and people ...

__________
* See IGARSS ’01 Paper by Smith, Wickland, Crawford, Cihlar, and Schnase entitled: Advancing our Biological and Ecological Predictive Capabilities.

- NASA’s Earth Science Vision for 2025 calls for significant advances in our _Ecological Forecasting capabilities_ *
*An ecological forecast predicts the impacts of biological, chemical, and physical changes on ecosystems, ecosystem components, and people ...*
- __________
- * See IGARSS ’01 Paper by Smith, Wickland, Crawford, Cihlar, and Schnase entitled: *Advancing our Biological and Ecological Predictive Capabilities.*

- Earth Science Vision 2010 – 2025Ecosystems, Biosphere, and Human-Biosphere Interactions

## Forecast Example Harmful Algal Blooms

## A Short-Term Regional ForecastFor Example: Predicting Harmful Algal Blooms

- Challenge: Predict landfall of harmful algal blooms ...
- Today
- Once blooms are detected, combine biophysical models, satellite tracking, and *in situ* sampling
- Tomorrow
- Predict bloom onset with coupled, multi-scale models and measurements

## Forecast Example Spread of Zebra Mussels

## A Long-Term Regional ForecastFor Example: The Spread of Zebra Mussels

- Challenge: Predict direction and rate of spread of Zebra Mussels ...
- Today
- Labor intensive inspection of boats and waterways
- Tomorrow
- High-resolution, real-time monitoring of existing colonies and pathway activity (boats, flow and water quality of connecting streams/canals, etc.)

## Importance of Ecological Forecasting

- Ecosystems are the basis of a strong economy
- _Goods_ - Annually, US ecosystems provide:
- $3.9 Billion in commercial fishing revenues
- $206 Billion from agriculture
- 20 Billion cubic feet of timber
- The base of strong recreation and tourist industry
- _Services_ - Ecosystems also provide:
- Clean air and water for every citizen
- Detoxification and decomposition of toxins
- Cycling and movement of carbon and nutrients
- Drought and flood mitigation

## Why Now?

- Ecological theory and practice sufficiently mature to take on the challenge of Ecological Forecasting
- Society’s demand for sustainable choices will require science to be more predictive
- Science and technology trends are creating new opportunities for ecological forecasting

## 2025 Technology Drivers

- Observation / Remote Sensing
- Advances creating new opportunities for multi-scale, 3D measurements
- Nanosat constellations
- Virtual platforms
- Co-observing systems
- Sensor webs offer new ways of providing adaptive, tailored, and opportunistic measurements ...

## 2025 Technology Drivers

- Computing / Data Management
- Creating new opportunities for on-demand, global-scale ecological modeling
- Holographic storage
- Quantum / molecular computing
- Amorphous / biological computing
- New computing architectures offer new ways of dealing with problemsof biocomplexity ...

## 2025 Technology Drivers

- Nanotechnology / Biotechnology
- Creating new opportunities for *in situ* sensing of environmental variables
- “Smart Dust”
- DNA chips
- Extreme sensitivity biosensors
- Nanosensors offer new ways of dealing with problems of scale ...

## NASA’s Strategic Opportunity

- Many sectors are driving these science and technology developments
- NSF, DARPA, NIH, DOD, etc.
- Telecommunications, biotechnology, medicine, etc.
- NASA can capitalize on these technology trends  ... contribute it’s unique perspective of space and capacity for end-to-end system integration ...
*... **to help create a national ecological forecasting capability*

## NASA’s Strategic ApproachHow do we get there from here?

- Build upon NASA’s exiting base of missions, scientific research, and technology development
- Extend current capabilities ...
- by addressing specific _environmental grand challenge problems_ ...
- that hold the _potential for advancing_ ...
- the _science and technology_ of ecological forecasting ...
- and provide significant _societal and economic benefits_ .

## Ecological ForecastingCandidate “Big Science” Challenge Questions

- Vision 2025 is attempting to identify classes of predictive problems that satisfy the criteria for advancing ecological forecasting, such as:
- Can we predict biological invasions?
- Can we predict ecological sustainability?
- Can we predict the ecological dynamics of the land / water interface?
- Can we predict the ecological consequences of climate change?
- Can we predict the ecological consequences of land cover change?
*	**	**	**We’ve started by looking at *_*biological invasions*_* ...*

## Ecological Forecasting of Biological Invasions *One of the Top Environmental Issue of the 21st Century!

- Economic Costs:
*$137+ Billion / Yr*
*	**(Pimentel, et al. 1999; NISRC Management Plan, 2001)*
*More than all other natural disasters combined*
- Environmental Costs:
*2**nd** leading cause of declining biodiversity*
- Human-Health Costs:
*West Nile Virus, Malaria, etc.*
- Agricultural Costs:
*Crop pathogens, hoof-and-mouth, mad cow disease, etc.*

- Notorious examples include:
*Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight, and purple loosestrife in the northeast; kudzu, Brazilian peppertree, water hyacinth, nutria, and fire ants in the southeast; zebra mussels, leafy spurge, and Asian long-horn beetles in the Midwest; salt cedar, Russian olive, and Africanized bees in the southwest; yellow star thistle, European wild oats, oak wilt disease, Asian clams, and white pine blister rust in California; cheatgrass, various knapweeds and thistles in the Great Basin; whirling disease of salmonids in the northwest; hundreds of invasive species from microbes to mammals in Hawaii; and the brown tree snake in Guam.*
*As many as 50,000 now,**hundreds new each year ...*

## Science Questions

- Which species are more likely to invade?
- What are the biotic and abiotic factors determining species distributions at local and landscape scales?
- Where are local concentrations of endemism, richness, abundance, and biomass?
- What processes drive habitat and community dynamics?
- How can we seamlessly model terrestrial and aquatic habitats? ... Economic and environmental interactions?
- How do invasive species interact with other environmental changes? ... What are the pathways of introduction?

## Why this is a difficult challenge ...

- High-resolution mapping of biological resources central to confronting the invasive species threat
- We must be able to identify dominant communities and structures with reasonable ability to identify species
- Biodiversity “hotspots” play a critical role in the biosphere ... we must be able to adaptively span global and local scales
- Early detection essential for rapid response and effective management
- Quantifying pathways of introduction essential for economic models and cost/benefit guidance for eradication and control

## What new and improvedcapabilities are needed?

- On-demand, predictive landscape- and regional-scale models and maps for biological invasions
*Pick any point, land management unit, county, state, or region and determine the current invasion, and vulnerability to future invasion by species.*
*Pick any species or group of species, and get current distributions, potential distributions, potential rates of change, and levels of uncertainty.*
- Data integration and sharing
*Comprehensive information on control efforts and cost. Share early detection data, control strategies, local expertise. Help public and private land managers*.

## What new and improved models are needed?

- High-dimensionality, hybrid predictive models
*Temporal, mechanistic, stochastic, and scenario-based*
*Combined economic and ecological models**using hundreds of variables*
- Scalable spatio-temporal models
*Molecules, microbes, to landscapes/ecosystems*
*Chemical reaction times to evolutionary/geological times*
- Integrated Earth system models
*Coupled ecosystem/climate models*
*Coupled terrestrial/aquatic models*

## What new and improved measurements are needed?

- Ecosystem biophysical structure
*Biomass, vertical structure, topography, ocean particulates, pigment florescence, trace gas fluxes, near surface atmospheric carbon dynamics, lake and stream chemistry, etc.*
- Ecosystem functional capacity / physiological state
*Pigment concentrations, live biomass, biomass turnover rates, photosynthetic and respiratory capacity, etc.*
- Biological population mapping
*Species, communities, functional-type mixtures, etc.*

**Notes:**
These threads represent the ecological community’s wish list of environmental parameters believed necessary if we are to make progress in understanding species distributions and the likelihood of finding certain taxa or communities in certain locations.  The parameters, in turn, generate requirements for certain types of remote sensing data to measure them. 

## Vegetation

- Importance
*Vegetation structure *_***the***_* habitat parameter for many species*
*Structural complexity major driver of species richness in all environments*
- Current Sources
*SAR - Estimates of canopy texture, biomass, geometry; AVHRR – NDVI*
- Future Sources
*LIDAR - Estimates of vertical stratification, canopy rugosity, leaf morphology, fractional cover, frequency/distribution of gaps, biomass, shallow marine environments*

**Notes:**
Vegetation structure, part of the third dimension of land remote sensing, is on almost everyone’s list as a critical environmental parameter.  Knowledge of habitat complexity may well revolutionize modelers’ abilities to develop projections of terrestrial species richness and might allow predictions of the likelihood of finding certain taxa and communities within a particular tract of forest.  The marine community is also keen on understanding benthic habitat structure in shallow environments.  Structure, whether derived via a satellite sensor on geographic scales ranging from regional to global or via an aircraft instrument for local to regional efforts, appears to be critical if we are to make progress.    

Both terrestrial and marine requirements for structure could likely be addressed through the use of lidar (light detection and ranging) technology -- albeit with land and ocean researchers employing different electromagnetic bands.  Lidar is a technology ripe for future use in this area of ecology.  However, more airborne campaigns are needed in a variety of terrestrial and marine habitats to ensure the utility of future satellite missions, such as NASA’s Vegetation Canopy Lidar (VCL).  Synthetic aperture radars (SAR) also hold promise as a tool for obtaining terrestrial habitat structure.  Again, more work should be done, particularly in the long, canopy-piercing wavelengths (say L band and beyond) to determine the utility of radar technology for this application. 

## Topography

- Importance
*Determinant of species range boundaries, corridors of invasion*
*Influences hydrological, geological, and human processes*
- Current Sources
*GTOPO 30; GLOBE 30 arcsec/100m; USGS/European regional models; US DEM*
- Future Sources
*SRTM (global) 30m H/30m V; High-resolution LIDAR; Military DTED2 (global)*

**Notes:**
Topography at a variety of scales is another parameter that would enable significant strides in understanding and predicting likely ranges, patterns, and occurrences of taxa and communities.  Those working in terrestrial environments need elevation data for every 30-50 meters on the ground, roughly equivalent to the spatial resolution of a Landsat scene.  However, those working in watersheds on freshwater issues require elevation information every 10m or less.  The NASA/NIMA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) is providing topographic coverage of nearly the entire Earth’s land surface between +/- 60 degrees latitude.  The vertical resolution of its topographic data lies between 8 and 15m with two types of elevation products being made available.  One product consists of elevation data captured every 90m and the other of data captured every 30m.  Thus, the latter data would best serve the needs of the ecological community, which should seek its release to the greatest number of users possible.  Looking beyond SRTM, both the Japanese Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) sensor aboard the NASA TERRA satellite and the recently launched Systeme pour l’Observation de la Terre 5 (SPOT 5) satellite have the capability to produce digital elevation models. 

## Soils

- Importance
*Species habitat requirement*
*Determinant of species range boundaries, corridors of invasion, dispersal patterns*
- Current Sources
*Type – STATSGO, local soil maps; Moisture – passive microwave, radar, and NIR*
- Future Sources
*High-resolution hyperspectral instruments, active microwave*

**Notes:**
Soil data in general is important.  For example, many need information on soil moisture.  Current methods focusing on passive microwave technology allow us to capture soil moisture data at coarse spatial resolutions over bare surfaces.  Some improvements might be forthcoming with new instruments, e.g. the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) sensor aboard NASA’s recently launched AQUA satellite.  Another approach to obtain this challenging data set would be to deploy active radar sensors.  Radars may allow for higher spatial resolution.  As was the case with habitat structure, longer wavelength bands are needed for this application to allow the pulses to pass through aboveground vegetation and penetrate the surface layer of soil. 

## Phenology

- Importance
*Species habitat requirement*
*Determinant of species range boundaries, corridors of invasion, dispersal patterns*
- Current Sources
*AVIRIS; 4-30m multispectral sensors*
- Future Sources
*Satellite-borne hyperspectral (could revolutionize our ability to track phenological changes)*

**Notes:**
Plant phenology is an important driver for animal species.  Many change habitats to keep track of available food sources.  While much can be done with higher spatial resolution (4-30m) multispectral sensors operating in the visible and infrared regions, hyperspectral technologies could revolutionize our ability to track phenological changes and other characteristics of vegetation.  With only one research system presently in orbit (the Hyperion sensor on the EO-1 satellite), we are just beginning to understand the capabilities of satellite-borne hyperspectral imaging.  However, studies with aircraft sensors, like the NASA Airborne Visible-Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS), hold out the hope that we may one day be able to identify plant species or at least communities of species from orbit.  Much ongoing work on identifying and predicting the potential spread of terrestrial invasive species relies on airborne hyperspectral imagery.  Marine researchers are currently doing impressive work using water-penetrating bands on airborne hyperspectral sensors to identify communities along coral reefs and other shallow benthic environments.  Airborne sensors typically provide imagery at spatial resolutions of 10m or less.

## What new and improved instruments, platforms, and architectures are needed?

- New interfaces between bits and atoms for an instrumented Earth
*Embedded macro- / nano-sensor webs **with space-based integration*
*Hierarchical 3D sensing for atmosphere, **land, lakes, streams, and oceans*
*Near real-time data integration, analysis, and dissemination **(multi-source, multi-sensor; combining *in situ*, UAV, aircraft, balloon, and space observations)*
*“**Anywhere, anytime, anyscale sensing on demand ...”*

## Why NASA?

- Ecological Forecasting is a stated focus area for the Earth Science Enterprise in both Science and Applications
*We have new and emerging data and technologies that can be applied to the problem*
*There’s a need to develop new models and increase the resolution, sensitivity, interoperability, comprehensiveness, and social relevance of existing Earth system models*

## Why NASA?

- Biological Invasions are a global problem
*We cannot extrapolate from local to global scales without space-based measurements*
- Completes the NASA ESE portfolio
- Customers are requesting our help
*Local, state, & federal agencies; private sector; the science community at large* ...

## Why NASA?

- It’s good for NASA
- It’s a hard problem
- It extends current capabilities
- It’s an autocatalytic problem
- It’s a *life* problem that NASA can take on ...

## Strategic National WinWhat might be possible in 25 years?

- A robust, national Ecological Forecasting capability could make the following commonplace:
*Annual national/global assessments of invasive species*
*On-demand predictions of land-cover change in biological hotspots*
*Decadal-scale forecasts of vegetation change*
*Early warning of biotic events/ hazards*
*Flexible decision support systems for adaptive resource management*
*On-demand measurements and movements of marine fisheries species ...*

## Earth Science Vision 2010 – 2025Ecosystems, Biosphere, and Human-Biosphere Interactions

- Workgroup Leads:
- John L. Schnase*NASA Goddard Space Flight Center*
- Sara Graves*University of Alabama, Huntsville**Earth Science Applications Advisory Committee*
- Biological Invasions Topic Leads:
- Thomas J. Stohlgren*USGS Biological Resources Division*
- James A. Quinn*University of California, Davis*
- Woody Turner *NASA HQ, ESE Science Division*

- Workgroup Members:
- James Clark *Duke University*
- David A. Lodge*University of Notre Dame*
- James A. Smith *NASA Goddard Space Flight Center*
- Charles Trees *NASA HQ, ESE Applications Division*
- Dave Peterson *NASA Ames Research Center*