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The Integrated Remote Sensing and Modeling Group (IRSMG) at the USGS Center for Coastal and Watershed Studies conducts investigations of the physical structure and ecological function of coastal ecosystems. The scope of IRSMG projects includes wetlands, estuaries, barrier islands, and coral reef ecosystems occurring about the United States and Caribbean coastal fringe. The IRSMG seeks to marry technical advances in remote sensing from satellite, aircraft, and vessel-based platforms with the natural resource management needs of National Seashores, National Parks, marine sanctuaries, and agencies responsible for the environmental health of major estuaries. The applied research activities of the IRSMG aim to incorporate emerging remote sensing methods in the investigation of the community metabolism and habitat complexity of coastal ecosystems.
The IRSMG projects are divided as follows:
I. Advanced Methods
This project focuses on advances in remote sensing techniques and applications from satellite, aircraft, and vessel-based platforms. In a close collaboration with NASA and NPS, aircraft-based lidar remote sensing data have been acquired over a variety of coastal communities. As part of this project, special emphasis has been placed on developing sophisticated algorithms for post-processing dense lidar data sets. The resulting fully-documented data products are readily ingestible by common surface modeling and GIS software packages.
A boat-mounted, georeferenced digital imaging system has been developed at the USGS for the monitoring and mapping of coral reef ecosystems. A software system has been developed for interactive browsing and quantitative analysis of these images.
II. Reef Models
This project utilizes the products created from the synoptic remote sensing of coastal marine and terrestrial environments, to study coral reef ecosystem geomorphology, topographic roughness and habitats at fine spatial scales.
III. Decision support
Considerable research is being carried out to analyze and interpret remotely-sensed data in support of appropriately timed and scaled zoning decisions by management authorities in order to conserve and sensibly exploit near shore marine ecosystems. The National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring Program has collaborated with NASA and USGS to acquire and process high-resolution topographic and multi-spectral data over many Parks. These data products have been used to derive metrics in support of natural resource management needs of the Park Service. Examples include methods to monitor dune volume change on barrier islands, derive vegetation canopy metrics from lidar, and monitor the shoreward of edge of vegetation on barrier islands.
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