ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING SEMINAR

ENVIRST 900

Special topics selected with each offering.

ENVIRST/GEOG/GEOSCI/GLE/LANDARC 371

Introduction to the Earth as viewed from above, focusing on use of aerial photography and satellite imagery to study the environment. Includes physical processes of electromagnetic radiation, data types and sensing capabilities, methods for interpretation, analysis and mapping, and applications.

ENVIRST 971

Many diverse technologies for monitoring the environment have become available in recent years, including traditional remote sensing data sources: aerial photography and satellite imagery, hyper-spectral data, imagery on demand, RADAR and LiDAR. Other new data sources are quite unconventional, with many emerging relatively recently: unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones), social media, smartphones as sources of crowd-sourced data, and more. Sophisticated data management, analytics, and presentation technology are required to effectively leverage both the spatial (including 3D) and temporal dimensions of these often untapped data sources. Intended to survey and explore these newly developing technologies, and provide direct experience to the student to understand and interact with the data and methods (geocomputing, coding, cloud-based platforms), and to learn to plan, manage, and utilize them effectively.

ENVIRST/GEOG 439

Covers a broad cross-section of American environmental policy by focusing on specific statutes and policy arenas. Surveys the basic elements of American environmental policy and regulation with a particular focus on the specific people, sites and scales at which environmental decision-making happens through primary-source case material. Maintains a dual focus on (a) the legal and regulatory aspects of environmental regulation and (b) the specific geographic and social features of actual cases in which regulations and policy are used. Understanding environmental outcomes in a complex society depends on observing both the structure of regulations and the geographic and social context in which such regulations emerge.

ENVIRST 956

Focuses on the fundamental physical principles of terrestrial remote sensing, followed by an examination of advanced topics in earth observation and digital image processing. Topics include radiation interaction with the atmosphere and the surface; radiative transfer theory; land surface characteristics including energy balance; thermal sensing; atmospheric and radiometric correction of image data; automated cloud detection and removal. Applications of remote sensing data for environmental problems will be explored in depth, including biophysical remote sensing with 3D modeling of vegetation canopies, dense time series analysis, data mining techniques, data fusion, as well as object vs. per-pixel approaches to pattern recognition. Explores all major data types, including optical, RADAR, LiDAR, and hyperspectral data, and provide instruction in hands-on image processing using open source software.