NASA

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

• NASAs 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.

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Forecast Example Harmful Algal Blooms
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A Short-Term Regional ForecastFor 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

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Forecast Example Spread of Zebra Mussels
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A Long-Term Regional ForecastFor 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.)

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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

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Why Now?

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

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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NASAs 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 its unique perspective of space and
  capacity for end-to-end system integration
• to help create a national ecological
  forecasting capability

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NASAs Strategic ApproachHow do we get there
from here?

• Build upon NASAs 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 .

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Ecological ForecastingCandidate 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?
• Weve started by looking at biological
  invasions ...

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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
• 2nd 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 ...

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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?

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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

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What new and improvedcapabilities 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.

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What new and improved models are needed?

• High-dimensionality, hybrid predictive models
• Temporal, mechanistic, stochastic, and
  scenario-based
• Combined economic and ecological modelsusing
  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

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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.

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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

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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)

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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

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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)

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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

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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
• Theres a need to develop new models and increase
  the resolution, sensitivity, interoperability,
  comprehensiveness, and social relevance of
  existing Earth system models

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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 ...

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Why NASA?

• Its good for NASA
• Its a hard problem
• It extends current capabilities
• Its an autocatalytic problem
• Its a life problem that NASA can take on ...

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Strategic National WinWhat 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 ...

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

• Workgroup Leads
• John L. SchnaseNASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Sara GravesUniversity of Alabama,
  HuntsvilleEarth Science Applications Advisory
  Committee
• Biological Invasions Topic Leads
• Thomas J. StohlgrenUSGS Biological Resources
  Division
• James A. QuinnUniversity of California, Davis
• Woody Turner NASA HQ, ESE Science Division

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