USSR Space Life Sciences Digest, issue 6

This is the sixth issue of NASA's USSR Space Life Sciences Digest. It contains abstracts of 54 papers recently published in Russian language periodicals and bound collections and of 10 new Soviet monographs. Selected abstracts are illustrated with figures and tables from the original. Additional features include a table of Soviet EVAs and information about English translations of Soviet materials available to readers. The topics covered in this issue have been identified as relevant to 26 areas of aerospace medicine and space biology. These areas are adaptation, biospherics, body fluids, botany, cardiovascular and respiratory systems, developmental biology, endocrinology, enzymology, exobiology, genetics, habitability and environment effects, health and medical treatment, hematology, human performance, immunology, life support systems, mathematical modeling, metabolism., microbiology, morphology and cytology, musculoskeletal system, neurophysiology, nutrition, perception, personnel selection, psychology, radiobiology, reproductive biology, and space medicine

FIREX mission requirements document for renewable resources

The initial experimental program and mission requirements for a satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system FIREX (Free-Flying Imaging Radar Experiment) for renewable resources is described. The spacecraft SAR is a C-band and L-band VV polarized system operating at two angles of incidence which is designated as a research instrument for crop identification, crop canopy condition assessments, soil moisture condition estimation, forestry type and condition assessments, snow water equivalent and snow wetness assessments, wetland and coastal land type identification and mapping, flood extent mapping, and assessment of drainage characteristics of watersheds for water resources applications. Specific mission design issues such as the preferred incidence angles for vegetation canopy measurements and the utility of a dual frequency (L and C-band) or dual polarization system as compared to the baseline system are addressed

Remote Sensing of Ecology, Biodiversity and Conservation: A Review from the Perspective of Remote Sensing Specialists

Remote sensing, the science of obtaining information via noncontact recording, has swept the fields of ecology, biodiversity and conservation (EBC). Several quality review papers have contributed to this field. However, these papers often discuss the issues from the standpoint of an ecologist or a biodiversity specialist. This review focuses on the spaceborne remote sensing of EBC from the perspective of remote sensing specialists, i.e., it is organized in the context of state-of-the-art remote sensing technology, including instruments and techniques. Herein, the instruments to be discussed consist of high spatial resolution, hyperspectral, thermal infrared, small-satellite constellation, and LIDAR sensors; and the techniques refer to image classification, vegetation index (VI), inversion algorithm, data fusion, and the integration of remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS)

Proceedings of the International Workshop on: methods and tools for water-related adaptation to climate change and climate proofing

The workshop fits in the National Water Plan of the Netherlands’ government of which the international chapter includes the strengthening of cooperation with other delta countries, including Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh and is part of the work plan of the Cooperative Programme on Water and Climate, a Netherlands’ sponsored programme with the objective to improve knowledge and capacity on the relation between water and climate change especially in developing countries and countries in transition

The Role of Russia's Terrestrial Biosphere in Bottom-up/Top-down Emissions Accounting

International accords such as the Kyoto Protocol that seek to regulate greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale necessitate methods sufficiently robust to account for uncertainties in emissions data. Any detection of changes in carbon emissions must account for such uncertainties to conclusively determine when emissions reductions have occurred. When used in combination, ground-based (bottom-up) assessments of carbon emissions and atmospheric inversion models (top-down) are powerful tools for reducing uncertainties and verifying flux estimates. Because top-down methods cannot differentiate between different ecological processes or human-induced fluxes, it is important that emissions accounting consider carbon fluxes "in toto" to properly verify flux estimates. This study compares two such comprehensive bottom-up evaluations - the Russian Full Carbon Accounting (FCA) and SIBERIA-II full greenhouse gas accounting projects. Carbon flux estimates from the terrestrial biosphere are compared in terms of mean values and uncertainties. The Russian FCA and SIBERIA-II estimates are found to be internally consistent, with a few exceptions. Top-down data may be used to further reduce uncertainties and verify flux estimates

Challenges and Opportunities of Multimodality and Data Fusion in Remote Sensing

International audience—Remote sensing is one of the most common ways to extract relevant information about the Earth and our environment. Remote sensing acquisitions can be done by both active (synthetic aperture radar, LiDAR) and passive (optical and thermal range, multispectral and hyperspectral) devices. According to the sensor, a variety of information about the Earth's surface can be obtained. The data acquired by these sensors can provide information about the structure (optical, synthetic aperture radar), elevation (LiDAR) and material content (multi and hyperspectral) of the objects in the image. Once considered together their comple-mentarity can be helpful for characterizing land use (urban analysis, precision agriculture), damage detection (e.g., in natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, oil-spills in seas), and give insights to potential exploitation of resources (oil fields, minerals). In addition, repeated acquisitions of a scene at different times allows one to monitor natural resources and environmental variables (vegetation phenology, snow cover), anthropological effects (urban sprawl, deforestation), climate changes (desertification, coastal erosion) among others. In this paper, we sketch the current opportunities and challenges related to the exploitation of multimodal data for Earth observation. This is done by leveraging the outcomes of the Data Fusion contests, organized by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society since 2006. We will report on the outcomes of these contests, presenting the multimodal sets of data made available to the community each year, the targeted applications and an analysis of the submitted methods and results: How was multimodality considered and integrated in the processing chain? What were the improvements/new opportunities offered by the fusion? What were the objectives to be addressed and the reported solutions? And from this, what will be the next challenges

A Comparison Of Methods For Scaling Field Data For Use In Mapping Dryland Ecosystem Vegetation With Airborne Imaging Spectroscopy

This research investigated scaling methods of field data to interpret aerial surveys for foliar N estimation using imaging spectroscopy. Foliar nitrogen (N) is an indicator of vegetative growth, which is related dryland ecosystem services. We compared four field-based methods to scale sagebrush foliar N estimates from shrub to the plot level (10 m x 10 m) for 21 plots collected in a dryland ecosystem in 2014 and 2015. Partial least squares regression related estimates to imaging spectroscopy variables. Results showed sensitivity to scaling method; pretreatment of imaging spectroscopy signals; subdividing the dataset into years; reducing predictor variables to reduce noise; and number of model iterations. The best performing methods used biomass allometry with density counts or cover estimates with leaf thickness with a log transformation and Savitzky-Golay smoothing method. Models selected different wavelengths as predictors. Several relied on wavelengths in the visual range associated with chlorophyll and few relied on wavelengths in the "red edge" of 800-850 nm. The best performing model used biomass allometry and a subset of wavelengths that consistently performed well across model iterations. This was used to map predicted foliar N values across the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed and can be used to support rangeland management

Science for Disaster Risk Reduction

This thematic report describes JRC's activities in support to disaster management. The JRC develops tools and methodologies to help in all phases of disaster management, from preparedness and risk assessment to recovery and reconstruction through to forecasting and early warning.JRC.A.6-Communicatio