Remote sensing for urban planning

Utility companies are challenged to provide services to a highly dynamic customer base. With factory closures and shifts in employment becoming a routine occurrence, the utility industry must develop new techniques to maintain records and plan for expected growth. BellSouth Telecommunications, the largest of the Bell telephone companies, currently serves over 13 million residences and 2 million commercial customers. Tracking the movement of customers and scheduling the delivery of service are major tasks for BellSouth that require intensive manpower and sophisticated information management techniques. Through NASA's Commercial Remote Sensing Program Office, BellSouth is investigating the utility of remote sensing and geographic information system techniques to forecast residential development. This paper highlights the initial results of this project, which indicate a high correlation between the U.S. Bureau of Census block group statistics and statistics derived from remote sensing data

Aplikasi Penginderaan Jauh Dan Sistem Informasi Geografis Untuk Pembuatan Environmental Sensitivity Index (Esi) Maps Di Pesisir Kabupaten Demak, Jawa Tengah

In coastal areas and beaches Demak are populated by a variety of ecosystems such as coral reefs, mangroves, fish, fish-eating birds, shrimp, and so on. Because of its diversity, these ecosystems are considered susceptible to interference from outside. Therefore, it is necessary to protect and preserve the coastal areas and beaches.This study uses a method of integrating remote sensing and GIS technology for assembling the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) Maps. Study began with the creation of Land Cover Map Demak Coastal Area, then the identification of coastal ecosystems through IKONOS satellite imagery, classification of shoreline and biological resources and subsequently entered into the stage of manufacture cartography Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) Maps of the Coastal Zone Demak.The results showed species and habitats of flora and fauna that successfully mapped and identified, there are as many as 19 species are scattered along the coast of Demak. Sensitive shoreline classification that often appear to be at the level of 10C (Swamps) and there are 7 other variations in the level of vulnerability. Classification variations are caused by differences in the structure of land that formed the shoreline and coastal area of Demak. The resulting product is a map: Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) Maps of the Coastal Zone Demak, the scale of the map was 1:25,000 and amounted to 6 (six) map sheet. In USAbility tests conducted on the product map, showing 70% respondents can understand and accept the information displayed in the map. So it can be assumed that the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) Maps of the Coastal Zone Demak can be understood by the reader and user of the map, and can be used as a reference for the development of coastal areas of Demak

Remote sensing and the Mississippi high accuracy reference network

Since 1986, NASA's Commercial Remote Sensing Program (CRSP) at Stennis Space Center has supported commercial remote sensing partnerships with industry. CRSP's mission is to maximize U.S. market exploitation of remote sensing and related space-based technologies and to develop advanced technical solutions for spatial information requirements. Observation, geolocation, and communications technologies are converging and their integration is critical to realize the economic potential for spatial informational needs. Global positioning system (GPS) technology enables a virtual revolution in geopositionally accurate remote sensing of the earth. A majority of states are creating GPS-based reference networks, or high accuracy reference networks (HARN). A HARN can be defined for a variety of local applications and tied to aerial or satellite observations to provide an important contribution to geographic information systems (GIS). This paper details CRSP's experience in the design and implementation of a HARN in Mississippi and the design and support of future applications of integrated earth observations, geolocation, and communications technology

Mapping the environmental sensitivity to oil spill and land use/land cover using spectrally transformed Landsat 7 ETM data

Accidents involving oil spill in the marine environment cause a number of impacts on biological communities and impose severe damages on human-use resources. Environmental sensitivity index (ESI) maps are an integral component of oil spill contingency planning and emergency response. ESI maps can also be used for environment management planning by adding land use/land cover (LULC) information on shoreline classification, biological and human-use resources. We have assessed the adequacy of restored ETM+/Landsat 7 images to generate ESI and LULC maps for a stretch of coastline between the cities of Areia Branca (RN) and Fortim (CE) in the Potiguar sedimentary basin, Northeast Brazil. This has been done by comparing results from segmentation by region growth and unsupervised classification of images generated by standard and selective principal components, IHS transform, soil adjusted vegetation index, and linear spectral mixture model. The assignment of image classes to map themes was aided by visual interpretation of digitally processed images and ground truth. Results clearly indicate that image restoration followed by fusion of multispectral and panchromatic ETM images via IHS transformation is the most versatile image product to be segmented and classified. The mapping approach is based on information from both image texture and statistics, and has the advantage of reducing interpretation bias introduced by analyst during contextual editing. We also show that the hybrid mapping scheme that uses automated and visual image interpretation is particularly useful for mapping the ESI and LULC

A Spatial Decision Support System for Oil Spill Response and Recovery

abstract: Coastal areas are susceptible to man-made disasters, such as oil spills, which not only have a dreadful impact on the lives of coastal communities and businesses but also have lasting and hazardous consequences. The United States coastal areas, especially the Gulf of Mexico, have witnessed devastating oil spills of varied sizes and durations that resulted in major economic and ecological losses. These disasters affected the oil, housing, forestry, tourism, and fishing industries with overall costs exceeding billions of dollars (Baade et al. (2007); Smith et al. (2011)). Extensive research has been done with respect to oil spill simulation techniques, spatial optimization models, and innovative strategies to deal with spill response and planning efforts. However, most of the research done in those areas is done independently of each other, leaving a conceptual void between them. In the following work, this thesis presents a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS), which efficiently integrates the independent facets of spill modeling techniques and spatial optimization to enable officials to investigate and explore the various options to clean up an offshore oil spill to make a more informed decision. This thesis utilizes Blowout and Spill Occurrence Model (BLOSOM) developed by Sim et al. (2015) to simulate hypothetical oil spill scenarios, followed by the Oil Spill Cleanup and Operational Model (OSCOM) developed by Grubesic et al. (2017) to spatially optimize the response efforts. The results of this combination are visualized in the SDSS, featuring geographical maps, so the boat ramps from which the response should be launched can be easily identified along with the amount of oil that hits the shore thereby visualizing the intensity of the impact of the spill in the coastal areas for various cleanup targets.Dissertation/ThesisMasters Thesis Computer Science 201

Factors for Consideration in a Plan for Terrestrial Oil Disaster Mitigation

Oil spills, are common disasters associated with hydrocarbon exploration and production, can be devastating and severely impact water quality, which can be detrimental to human life and the environment. One of the primary objectives of oil spill planning and response, aside from protecting human beings, is to reduce the environmental consequences of spills and cleanup efforts. This objective is best achieved by responders identifying sensitive resources ahead of time to establish protection priorities and select cleanup strategies. When a plan is well situated, within the limited hours available to respond, responders will not have to contact all of the various resource managers for information on essential resources to protect. That means that the effectiveness of the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) map of an area depends on the integral component of overall planning activity. This qualitative study explored and used publicly available and nonproprietary data to mimic the coastal and marine sensitivity representations on emergency preparedness for environmental disaster in terrestrial settings and produce a plan to address such potential disaster. Results indicate that there is a need to classify the resources that society values, such as biological, socioeconomic, or cultural assets, and describe the state of a system and the degree to which a system or asset is affected, either positively or negatively, in the event of an oil spill. Terrestrial Environmental Sensitivity Index mapping will help to support the highest response priorities, prevent impacts to human life, prevent oil from leaching into groundwater or as runoff, and return the environment to productive use as quickly as possible, leading to positive social change

Risky business : evaluating the vulnerability and impacts from simulated oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico

Exploration and production of oil in the Gulf of Mexico has seen an astonishing increase since the first well was drilled in 1936. Much of the current exploration is occurring in waters greater than 5000 feet. The largest and most unprecedented oil spill in the United States occurred on April 20, 2010 when the British Petroleum (BP) Deepwater Horizon, semisubmersible drilling platform experienced a catastrophic failure at the well head while drilling in about 5000 feet of water depth. In the three months that followed the blowout, 4.5 million barrels of oil were discharged into the Gulf of Mexico waters. The oil had dire consequences on the ecology, economy, and biology of the system. The spill highlighted gaps in our knowledge concerning the exploration of deepwater (500-5000 ft.) and ultra-deepwater (5000+ ft.) offshore environments. No other spill in the United States has occurred in water depths comparable to the Deepwater Horizon spill. Because of the unprecedented nature of the spill, scientists did not have an accurate estimate of where the oil would go or even how much oil was entering the water column, let alone an estimate of where the most damage might occur. In this study, I present a baseline approach for evaluating oil spills to alleviate some of the uncertainties seen during the Deepwater Horizon disaster. A number of key data sets to be used in vulnerability and impact assessment were collected and created. The data sets were then incorporated into a methodology/framework relying on a vector grid to capture the spatial characteristics of the study system. To test the approach, the Blowout and Spill Occurrence Model (BLOSOM) was used to simulate multiple oil spill scenarios at varying locations and depths across the Gulf of Mexico. A cross-analysis was then performed to analyze the spatial data sets and discrete oil spill quantities captured spatially using the vector grid. The result of the cross-analysis was compared between scenarios to assess how changes affect the overall vulnerability and impact in the Gulf of Mexico