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At least 235 records · Page 13

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NASA NTRS1973

A land use and environmental impact analysis of the Norfolk-Portsmouth SMSA

The feasibility of using remote sensing techniques for land use and environmental assessment in the Norfolk-Portsmouth area is discussed. Data cover the use of high altitude aircraft and satellite remote sensing data for: (1) identifying various heirarchial levels of land use, (2) monitoring land use changes for repetitive basis, (3) assessing the impact of competing land uses, and (4) identifying areas of potential environmental deterioration. High altitude aircraft photographs (scale 1:120,000) acquired in 1959, 1970, and 1972, plus Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS-1) color composite images acquired in 1972 were used for the land use and environmental assessments. The high altitude aircraft photography, as expected, was successfully used to map Level 1, Level 2, as well as some urban Level 3 land use categories. However, the detail of land use analysis obtainable from the ERTS imagery exceeded the expectations for the U.S. Geological Survey's land use classification scheme. Study results are consistent with the initial investigation which determined Level 1 land use change to be 16.7 square km per year.

Mitchel, W. B.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Estimation of Regional Evapotranspiration Using Remotely Sensed Land Surface Temperature. Part 1: Measurement of Evapotranspiration at the Environmental Research Center and Determination of Priestley-taylor Parameter

In order to study the distribution of evapotranspiration in the humid region using remote sensing technology, the parameter (alpha) in the Priestley-Taylor model was determined. The daily means of the parameter alpha = 1.14 can be available from summer to autumn and alpha = to approximately 2.0 in winter. The results of the satellite and the airborne sensing done on 21st and 22nd January, 1983, are described. Using the vegetation distribution in the Tsukuba Academic New Town, as well as the radiation temperature obtained by remote sensing and the radiation data observed at the ground surface, the evapotranspiration was calculated for each vegetation type by the Priestley-Taylor method. The daily mean evapotranspiration on 22nd January, 1983, was approximately 0.4 mm/day. The differences in evapotranspiration between the vegetation types were not detectable, because the magnitude of evapotranspiration is very little in winter.

Kotada, K.↗

NASA NTRS2008

Exploiting Satellite Remote-Sensing Data in Fine Particulate Matter Characterization for Serving the Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (EPHTN): The HELIX-Atlanta Experience and NPOESS Implications

As part of the U.S. National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (EPHTN), the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) led a project in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) called Health and Environment Linked for Information Exchange (HELIX-Atlanta). Under HELIX-Atlanta, pilot projects were conducted to develop methods to better characterize exposure; link health and environmental datasets; and analyze spatial/temporal relationships. This paper describes and demonstrates different techniques for surfacing daily environmental hazards data of particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter less than or equal to 2.5 micrometers (PM(sub 2.5) for the purpose of integrating respiratory health and environmental data for the CDC's pilot study of HELIX-Atlanta. It describes a methodology for estimating ground-level continuous PM(sub 2.5) concentrations using spatial surfacing techniques and leveraging NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) data to complement the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ground observation data. The study used measurements of ambient PM(sub 2.5) from the EPA database for the year 2003 as well as PM(sub 2.5) estimates derived from NASA's MODIS data. Hazard data have been processed to derive the surrogate exposure PM(sub 2.5) estimates. The paper has shown that merging MODIS remote sensing data with surface observations of PM(sub 2.5), may provide a more complete daily representation of PM(sub 2.5), than either data set alone would allow, and can reduce the errors in the PM(sub 2.5) estimated surfaces. Future work in this area should focus on combining MODIS column measurements with profile information provided by satellites like the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). The Visible Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and the Aerosol Polarimeter Sensor (APS) NPOESS sensors will provide first-order information on aerosol particle size and are anticipated to provide information on aerosol products at higher resolution and accuracy than MODIS. Use of the NPOESS remote sensing data should result in more robust remotely sensed data that can be coupled with the methods discussed in this paper to generate surface concentrations of PM(2.5) for linkage with health data in Environmental Public Health Tracking.

Al-Hamdan, Mohammad Z.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Technology needs of advanced Earth observation spacecraft

Remote sensing missions were synthesized which could contribute significantly to the understanding of global environmental parameters. Instruments capable of sensing important land and sea parameters are combined with a large antenna designed to passively quantify surface emitted radiation at several wavelengths. A conceptual design for this large deployable antenna was developed. All subsystems required to make the antenna an autonomous spacecraft were conceptually designed. The entire package, including necessary orbit transfer propulsion, is folded to package within the Space Transportation System (STS) cargo bay. After separation, the antenna, its integral feed mast, radiometer receivers, power system, and other instruments are automatically deployed and transferred to the operational orbit. The design resulted in an antenna with a major antenna dimension of 120 meters, weighing 7650 kilograms, and operating at an altitude of 700 kilometers.

Herbert, J. J.↗

DOE OSTI2025

Remote sensing images, DEM, and point clouds associated with “Accuracy evaluation of cost-effective 3D reconstruction approaches for hydrobiogeochemical processes in non-perennial stream riverbeds”

This data package is associated with the publication “Accuracy evaluation of cost-effective 3D reconstruction approaches for hydrobiogeochemical processes in non-perennial stream riverbeds” published in Frontiers in Environmental Science, Environmental Informatics and Remote Sensing (Bao et al., 2026; doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1725258). This data package includes the drone photos for a section of Umtanum Creek in Washington, Unted States. The photos were used to reconstruct the 3-dimensional (3D) digital elevation model (DEM) of the riverbed for the investigated stream section. The reconstruction results from four approaches are provided: (1) unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV, colloquially known as drone) imagery-based Structure-from-Motion (SfM), (2) a machine learning-based 3D reconstruction model, Visual Geometry Grounded Deep Structure from Motion (VGGSfM), (3) Visual Geometry Grounded Transformer for long sequence of images (VGGT-Long), and (4) handheld smartphone LiDAR scanning. The ground truth measurements by tripod-mounted optical level kit and ground control points GPS locations for evaluating the accuracy of the four reconstruction approaches are also provided in this data package. A preliminary version of this data package was published in October 2025 at the time of manuscript submission. It was updated in March 2026, at the time of manuscript acceptance, to include additional metadata (this readme, data dictionary, and file level metadata). The data did not change. For details on how to navigate data packages generated by this project, see https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/portals/PNNLRiverCorridorSFA/About. In addition to a readme, this data package also includes a file-level metadata (FLMD) file that describes each file and a data dictionary (DD) that describes all column/row headers and variable definitions. This dataset is comprised of (1) 8 folders; (2) the detailed flight configuration html files; (3) field metadata; (4) a readme; (5) a data dictionary; and (6) file-level metadata. The folders “2024_10_18_d01” and “2024_10_18_d02” contain the original drone photos for the two drone flights (d01 and d02) on October 18, 2024. The reconstruction results from each of the approaches are in the folders called “ODM_SfM”, “VGGSfM”, “VGGTLong”, and “LiDAR”. The ground truth measurements are in the folder called “optical_level_kit”. Lastly, results comparing the different approaches are in the folder called “comparisons”. All files are .csv, .html, .jpg, .obj, .txt, and .npy. For information on using the .obj and .npy files, see the readme files within the same folder as the files.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

Femtosecond laser fabrication of nanograting-based distributed fiber sensors for extreme environmental applications

Abstract The femtosecond laser has emerged as a powerful tool for micro- and nanoscale device fabrication. Through nonlinear ionization processes, nanometer-sized material modifications can be inscribed in transparent materials for device fabrication. This paper describes femtosecond precision inscription of nanograting in silica fiber cores to form both distributed and point fiber sensors for sensing applications in extreme environmental conditions. Through the use of scanning electron microscope imaging and laser processing optimization, high-temperature stable, Type II femtosecond laser modifications were continuously inscribed, point by point, with only an insertion loss at 1 dB m −1 or 0.001 dB per point sensor device. High-temperature performance of fiber sensors was tested at 1000 °C, which showed a temperature fluctuation of ±5.5 °C over 5 days. The low laser-induced insertion loss in optical fibers enabled the fabrication of a 1.4 m, radiation-resilient distributed fiber sensor. The in-pile testing of the distributed fiber sensor further showed that fiber sensors can execute stable and distributed temperature measurements in extreme radiation environments. Overall, this paper demonstrates that femtosecond-laser-fabricated fiber sensors are suitable measurement devices for applications in extreme environments.

Wang, Mohan (ORCID:0000000166784993)↗

NASA NTRS1996

Development of a Land Use Mapping and Monitoring Protocol for the High Plains Region: A Multitemporal Remote Sensing Application

The purpose of this project was to develop a practical protocol that employs multitemporal remotely sensed imagery, integrated with environmental parameters to model and monitor agricultural and natural resources in the High Plains Region of the United States. The value of this project would be extended throughout the region via workshops targeted at carefully selected audiences and designed to transfer remote sensing technology and the methods and applications developed. Implementation of such a protocol using remotely sensed satellite imagery is critical for addressing many issues of regional importance, including: (1) Prediction of rural land use/land cover (LULC) categories within a region; (2) Use of rural LULC maps for successive years to monitor change; (3) Crop types derived from LULC maps as important inputs to water consumption models; (4) Early prediction of crop yields; (5) Multi-date maps of crop types to monitor patterns related to crop change; (6) Knowledge of crop types to monitor condition and improve prediction of crop yield; (7) More precise models of crop types and conditions to improve agricultural economic forecasts; (8;) Prediction of biomass for estimating vegetation production, soil protection from erosion forces, nonpoint source pollution, wildlife habitat quality and other related factors; (9) Crop type and condition information to more accurately predict production of biogeochemicals such as CO2, CH4, and other greenhouse gases that are inputs to global climate models; (10) Provide information regarding limiting factors (i.e., economic constraints of pumping, fertilizing, etc.) used in conjunction with other factors, such as changes in climate for predicting changes in rural LULC; (11) Accurate prediction of rural LULC used to assess the effectiveness of government programs such as the U.S. Soil Conservation Service (SCS) Conservation Reserve Program; and (12) Prediction of water demand based on rural LULC that can be related to rates of draw-down of underground water supplies.

Price, Kevin P.↗

DOE OSTI2023

Optode performance data associated with: Metabolic Multireactor: practical considerations for using simple oxygen sensing optodes for high-throughput batch reactor metabolism experiments

This data package is associated with the publication “Metabolic Multireactor: practical considerations for using simple oxygen sensing optodes for high-throughput batch reactor metabolism experiments”, submitted to PlosONE (Kaufman et al. 2023; 10.1101/2023.03.28.534656).We carried out many testing and calibration experiments on a system of small oxygen consumption batch reactors designed for use with water and sediment samples for environmental questions. The oxygen sensing system is based very directly on the work of Larsen, et al. [2011], and similar oxygen sensing technology is widely used in the literature. Our primary focus was on practical considerations, such as temperature effects, lighting angle effects, sterilization, and other similar situations that a user may find useful. Most of the tests required comparing “base” calibration curves to “treatment” calibration curves to determine the extent to which the treatment impacted the reported measurements. This data package contains the performance and calibration data collected for that purpose.This dataset is comprised of one data folder containing (1) file-level metadata; (2) data dictionary; (3) readme; (4) diffusion test result files; (5) limit of detection test result files; (6) temperature impact files; (7) a main data file that contains test results for all other tests; and (8) an R script that uses Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests to determine whether treatment calibrations are significantly different from their respective base calibrations. All files are .csv, .txt, .Rmd, or .pdf.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS1974

Research on the application of satellite remote sensing to local, state, regional and national programs involved with resource management and environmental quality

A program designed to involve state, regional and local agency personnel in the application of remote sensing is reported. During this period fifteen applications projects were initiated in support of twenty-five separate state, county and municipal agencies or entities. Eight of the projects were completed with positive results which aided the agencies involved. These results included information which contributed to decisions on: (1) selection of a route for a scenic parkway, (2) policy development on open land use, (3) policy related to urban development, (4) a major reservoir project by a governor's staff, (5) control tactics and damage assessment during flooding conditions on the Kansas and Missouri rivers, and (6) initiating a program of habitat inventory by remote sensing by the Kansas Forestry, Fish and Game Commission.

Barr, B. G.↗

NASA NTRS1983

A concept for an advanced earth observation spacecraft

Remote sensing missions have been synthesized which could contribute significantly to the understanding of global environmental parameters. Instruments capable of sensing important land and sea parameters are combined with a large antenna designed to passively quantify surface emitted radiation at several wavelengths. A conceptual design for this large deployable antenna has been developed. All subsystems required to make the antenna an autonomous spacecraft have been conceptually designed. The entire package, including necessary orbit transfer propulsion, is folded to package within the Space Transportation System (STS) cargo bay. After separation the antenna, its integral feed mast, radiometer receivers, power system, and other instruments are automatically deployed and transferred to the operational orbit. The design resulted in an antenna with a major antenna dimension of 120 meters, weighting 7650 kilograms, and operating at an altitude of 700 kilometers.

Lovelace, U. M.↗

DOE OSTI2021

MicroResonators for Compacts Optical Sensors (μRCOS)

As the demand for continuous, in-situ surveillance of health of systems and environments rapidly increases, miniaturized sensors with fast responses are sought. Optical dielectric resonators supporting Whispering Gallery Modes (WGMs) have exceptional properties, like very high-power density, very narrow spectral linewidth, and extremely small mode volume. As the footprint of these sensors is drastically reduced, measurements of microvolumes samples with dramatic reduction in analysis time are possible, enabling large numbers of parallel analyses using microarrays. The high sensitivity and speed of WGM resonators combined with the ability to detect molecules in their native state have great future potential for basic and applied research such as reliable single molecule, trace-gas detection, environmental monitoring, chemical threat sensing, and biodefense Such appealing peculiarities motivated us developing WMG resonators (WGMRs) for Cavity Enhanced Absorption Spectroscopy (CEAS) for chem-bio detection. Specifically, we designed and batch-fabricated microspheres and fiber tapers for resonances excitation. We successfully detected gases (N 2 and CO 2 ) in customized environmental chambers, and bio-organisms (Inf. A and E. Coli) with integrated microfluidic systems. Background calibration and environmental isolation were always accounted for in proving the performances.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2021

MicroResonators for Compacts Optical Sensors (μRCOS)

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

NASA NTRS2008

Environmental Public Health Survelliance for Exposure to Respiratory Health Hazards: A Joint NASA/CDC Project to Use Remote Sensing Data for Estimating Airborne Particulate Matter Over the Atlanta, Georgia Metropolitan Area

Describes the public health surveillance efforts of NASA, in a joint effort with the Center for Disease Control (CDC). NASA/MSFC and the CDC are partners in linking nvironmental and health data to enhance public health surveillance. The use of NASA technology creates value - added geospatial products from existing environmental data sources to facilitate public health linkages. The venture sought to provide remote sensing data for the 5-country Metro-Atlanta area and to integrate this environmental data with public health data into a local network, in an effort to prevent and control environmentally related health effects. Remote sensing data used environmental data (Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] Air Quality System [AQS] ground measurements and MODIS Aerosol Optical Depth [AOD]) to estimate airborne particulate matter over Atlanta, and linked this data with health data related to asthma. The study proved the feasibility of linking environmental data (MODIS particular matter estimates and AQS) with health data (asthma). Algorithms were developed for QC, bias removal, merging MODIS and AQS particulate matter data, as well as for other applications. Additionally, a Business Associate Agreement was negotiated for a health care provider to enable sharing of Protected Health Information.

Quattrochi, Dale A.↗

DOE OSTI2022

Adaptation to Environmental Extremes Structures Functional Traits in Biological Soil Crust and Hypolithic Microbial Communities

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are widespread in drylands and deserts. At the microhabitat scale, they also host hypolithic communities that live under semitranslucent stones. Both environmental niches experience exposure to extreme conditions such as high UV radiation, desiccation, temperature fluctuations, and resource limitation. However, hypolithic communities are somewhat protected from extremes relative to biocrust communities. Conditions are otherwise similar, so comparing them can answer outstanding questions regarding adaptations to environmental extremes. Using metagenomic sequencing, we assessed the functional potential of dryland soil communities and identified the functional underpinnings of ecological niche differentiation in biocrusts versus hypoliths. We also determined the effect of the anchoring photoautotroph (moss or cyanobacteria). Genes and pathways differing in abundance between biocrusts and hypoliths indicate that biocrust communities adapt to the higher levels of UV radiation, desiccation, and temperature extremes through an increased ability to repair damaged DNA, sense and respond to environmental stimuli, and interact with other community members and the environment. Intracellular competition appears to be crucial to both communities, with biocrust communities using the Type VI Secretion System (T6SS) and hypoliths favoring a diversity of antibiotics. The dominant primary producer had a reduced effect on community functional potential compared with niche, but an abundance of genes related to monosaccharide, amino acid, and osmoprotectant uptake in moss-dominated communities indicates reliance on resources provided to heterotrophs by mosses. Our findings indicate that functional traits in dryland communities are driven by adaptations to extremes and we identify strategies that likely enable survival in dryland ecosystems.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS2022

Adaptation to environmental extremes structures functional traits in biological soil crust and hypolithic microbial communities

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are widespread in drylands and deserts. At the microhabitat scale, they also host hypolithic communities that live under semi-translucent stones. Both environmental niches experience exposure to extreme conditions such as high UV radiation, desiccation, temperature fluctuations, and resource limitation. However, hypolithic communities are somewhat protected from extremes relative to biocrust communities. Conditions are otherwise similar, so comparing them can answer outstanding questions regarding adaptations to environmental extremes. Using metagenomic sequencing, we assessed the functional potential of dryland soil communities and identified the functional underpinnings of ecological niche differentiation in biocrusts versus hypoliths. We also determined the effect of the anchoring photoautotroph (moss or cyanobacteria). Genes and pathways differing in abundance between biocrusts and hypoliths indicate that biocrust communities adapt to the higher levels of UV radiation, desiccation, and temperature extremes through an increased ability to repair damaged DNA, sense and respond to environmental stimuli, and interact with other community members and the environment. Intracellular competition appears to be crucial to both communities, with biocrust communities waging war using the Type VI Secretion System (T6SS) and hypoliths favoring diversity of antibiotics. The dominant primary producer had a reduced effect on community functional potential compared with niche, but an abundance of genes related to monosaccharide, amino acid, and osmoprotectant uptake in moss-dominated communities indicates reliance on resources provided to heterotrophs by mosses. Our findings indicate that functional traits in dryland communities are driven by adaptations to extremes and we identify strategies that likely enable survival in dryland ecosystems.

Biological soil crusts↗

DOE OSTI2023

A bacterial sensor taxonomy across earth ecosystems for machine learning applications

Microbial communities have evolved to colonize all ecosystems of the planet, from the deep sea to the human gut. Microbes survive by sensing, responding, and adapting to immediate environmental cues. This process is driven by signal transduction proteins such as histidine kinases, which use their sensing domains to bind or otherwise detect environmental cues and “transduce” signals to adjust internal processes. We hypothesized that an ecosystem’s unique stimuli leave a sensor “fingerprint,” able to identify and shed insight on ecosystem conditions. To test this, we collected 20,712 publicly available metagenomes from Host-associated, Environmental, and Engineered ecosystems across the globe. We extracted and clustered the collection’s nearly 18M unique sensory domains into 113,712 similar groupings with MMseqs2. We built gradient-boosted decision tree machine learning models and found we could classify the ecosystem type (accuracy: 87%) and predict the levels of different physical parameters (R2 score: 83%) using the sensor cluster abundance as features. Feature importance enables identification of the most predictive sensors to differentiate between ecosystems which can lead to mechanistic interpretations if the sensor domains are well annotated. To demonstrate this, a machine learning model was trained to predict patient’s disease state and used to identify domains related to oxygen sensing present in a healthy gut but missing in patients with abnormal conditions. Moreover, since 98.7% of identified sensor domains are uncharacterized, importance ranking can be used to prioritize sensors to determine what ecosystem function they may be sensing. Furthermore, these new predictive sensors can function as targets for novel sensor engineering with applications in biotechnology, ecosystem maintenance, and medicine.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NASA NTRS1994

The 1994 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 1994)

The papers presented at the symposium focus on remote sensing, particularly on global monitoring of the earth with emphasis on the solution of environmental problems. Topics discussed include remote sensing of clouds and earth troposphere, sea ice remote sensing, optical remote sensing, land monitoring and thermal sensing, atmospheric sounding and monitoring, atmospheric correction, and satellite imaging data. Other subject areas are ecosystems and vegetation monitoring; ocean winds and surface scattering; ocean waves, currents and bathymetry; satellite oceanography; SAR for remote sensing; neural nets application to remote sensing; geographical information systems; and electromagnetic wave propagation. Also discussed environmental monitoring using ERS-1; Topex/Poseidon results; spaceborne instruments; image processing and classification algorithms; and future space missions.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1976

Remote sensing in Michigan for land resource management

The Environmental Research Institute of Michigan is conducting a program whose goal is the large-scale adoption, by both public agencies and private interests in Michigan, of NASA earth-resource survey technology as an important aid in the solution of current problems in resource management and environmental protection. During the period from June 1975 to June 1976, remote sensing techniques to aid Michigan government agencies were used to achieve the following major results: (1) supply justification for public acquisition of land to establish the St. John's Marshland Recreation Area; (2) recommend economical and effective methods for performing a statewide wetlands survey; (3) assist in the enforcement of state laws relating to sand and gravel mining, soil erosion and sedimentation, and shorelands protection; (4) accomplish a variety of regional resource management actions in the East Central Michigan Planning and Development Region. Other tasks on which remote sensing technology was used include industrial and school site selection, ice detachment in the Soo Harbor, grave detection, and data presentation for wastewater management programs.

Lowe, D. S.↗