Remote sensing by satellite can provide valuable information to state officials when making decisions regarding resources management. Portions of California's investment for Prosperity program which seem likely candidates for remote sensing include: (1) surveying vegetation type, age, and density in forests and wildlife habitats; (2) controlling fires through chaparal management; (3) monitoring wetlands and measuring ocean biomass; (4) eliminating ground water overdraught; (5) locating crops in overdraught areas, assessing soil erosion and the areas of poorly drained soils and those affected by salt; (6) monitoring coastal lands and resources; (7) changes in landscapes for recreational purposes; (8) inventorying irrigated lands; (9) classifying ground cover; (10) monitoring farmland conversion; and (11) supplying data for a statewide computerized farmlands data base

Johnson, H. D.

English

NASA Technical Reports Server

E STATE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT & ROLE OF REMOTE SENSING 
Huey D. Johnson - (Secre ta ry  f o r  Resources - The Resources Agency 
S t a t e  of Ca l i fo rn i a )  
From t h e  Brown Administrat ion viewpoint,  we a r e  indeed f ac ing  t h e  r e a l i t y  
of l i m i t s .  There is  t h e  s u b j e c t  of ca r ry ing  capac i ty .  We have always 
responded t o  i s s u e s  involving t h e  r e a l i t y  of supply and demand on re-  
sources .  We cons t an t ly  f a c e  a demand f o r  more water.  More water  f o r  
Southern C a l i f o r n i a  f o r  what becomes non-exis t ing sources  i n  t h e  North. 
That l e a d s  t o  a l o t  of problems. Without ques t ion ,  I would ag ree  wi th  
Theodore Roosevelt .  He suggested t h a t  we know we w i l l  f a c e  an  i r o n l e s s  
age,  b u t  we can no t  a f f o r d  t o  l i v e  i n  a woodless one. So a s  a major 
theme f o r  my agency, I have argued t h a t  we need t o  upgrade t h e  p roduc t iv i ty  
of t h e  s t a t e ' s  n a t u r a l  systems. One of t h e  r e a l i t i e s  f o r  me, a s  a Re- 
source  Manager, and anyone e l s e  i n  t h i s  p o s i t i o n ,  is  making dec i s ions  
wi thout  an adequate d a t a  base. It i s  dec i s ion  making i n  t h e  dark.  
Those a r e  s e r i o u s  dec i s ions  and a f f e c t  t h e  q u a l i t y  of no t  only i n d i v i d u a l  
l i v e s  bu t  whole s e c t o r s  of soc i e ty .  Being a budget manager, an  execu- 
t i o n e r  a s  i t  were, you a r e  g e t t i n g  some news t h i s  morning. Having t o  
s l e e p  wi th  those  kinds of dec i s ions  and condi t ions  cons t an t ly  goes wi th  
t h e  r e a l i t y  of t h e  job these  days. Not t he  l e a s t  dilemma of no t  having 
adequate  information is  cons tan t  controversy.  Being a r e g u l a t o r  of o i l  
and gas ,  f o r e s t r y ,  f i s h e r i e s ,  geology p l u s  gene ra l  environmental q u a l i t y  
and development means t h a t  you have t o  s tand  up and t ake  a l o t  of h e a t ,  
and b e  a b l e  t o  respond wi th  t h e  b e s t  information you can come up wi th .  
My f r u s t r a t i o n  is  t h a t  I r a r e l y  have adequate information.  My t a s k  
assignment each day is  t o  f e e l  those  i s s u e s  where no one e l s e  wants t o  
make a dec i s ion ,  o r  no po l i cy  base  e x i s t s  f o r  i t .  I f i n d  i t  t o  b e  a 
very  e x c i t i n g  p o s i t i o n  and one worthy of a one time s t i n t  a t  p u b l i c  
s e r v i c e .  But I am c e r t a i n  t h a t  t h e  f u t u r e  can b e  managed b e t t e r ,  and 
t h a t  remote sens ing  people can provide important information and thus  
enhance t h e  q u a l i t y  of both of our  f i e l d s  and t h e  q u a l i t y  of our  f u t u r e .  
Remote sens ing  has  given us  a breakthrough i n  t h e  information we have, 
and i n  being a b l e  t o  produce t h a t  d e t a i l e d  information v i s u a l l y .  U n t i l  
r e c e n t l y ,  I have been very s k e p t i c a l  about t h e  r e a l  va lue  of s a t e l l i t e  
technology f o r  making down-to-earth dec i s ions  t h a t  confront  r e sou rce  
managers today. Two experiences i n  p a r t i c u l a r  have r e c e n t l y  reduced 
my skept ic i sm and a r e  t h e  reasons I have accepted t h i s  i n v i t a t i o n  today. 
I would no t  have done s o  s i x  months ago. 
One r e s u l t e d  from a r ecen t  v i s i t  t o  Kenya where I v i s i t e d  t h e  United 
Nations on a program. While t h e r e ,  I had a chance t o  s e e  a remarkable 
program r e s u l t i n g  from s a t e l l i t e  imagery which concerns mapping s o i l  
types and condi t ions  i n  North Afr ica .  The type  of c a p a b i l i t i e s  t h a t  I 
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19820014676 2020-03-21T08:27:01+00:00Z
wish we had in California. The other experience that reduced my doubt
hasbeen in seeing some of the positive results from satellite imagery
programs conducted by other departments and agencies. I tend to be a
very practical person and must consider the pressures that government
people work under today. It is only when I see practical results that
I can defend in the public arena for budgets and that I can honestly
become enthusiastic about a project. So here I am. I even had a won-
derful discussion with a colleage who is on the governor's cabinet and
a strong proponent of NASA and its satellite programs. I told him that
I have had a transition.
While satellites are new, remote sensing is not. Geologists, foresters,
soils scientists, wildlife biologists, and other specialists have relied
for years on aerial photography for primary data. In addition to de-
tailed information that can be obtained quickly and inexpensively by
photointerpretation. The broad overview presented by such photos allows
a graph of resource relationships which is difficult or impossible to
get on the ground level. Satellite imagery expands that overview and
further increases our conceptual grasp.
Looking to the future, as I feel we must, I believe California needs to
upgrade the productivity of its natural systems. As a result, I have
put together a 20 year plan for the State of California's resources.
It includes a major section entitled data base. One of the themes
argues that we must take income from non-renewable sources that will
only be with us once - for instance, one time oil revenues - and invest
part of that income into upgrading these programs, which includes data
base.
I entitled the program "Investing for Prosperity" because by investing
in resources today, we can assure both a continued economic strength
and a satisfactory quality of life for all our citizens and tax payers.
It is having interesting success. It was launched after Proposition 13
was passed. In fact, I believe until Prop 13 and a tax rebellion oc-
curred, it would not have been listened to. Until society had to slow
down and start making some judgements and selecting priorities, we
could not have been heard nor would our argument have made sense, but
we have done very well.
We passed five bills after that proposition. This legislation includes
funding that allowed us to create a new forest improvement program for
the state. We discovered that with 17 million acres of the best timber-
land in the world, five million had never been replanted after being cut.
Many of the potentially productive streams had been blocked for a hundred
years. We unplugged I00 miles this year, and we will double that next
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year. Interesting uses of technology have been planned. A pilot de-
salter project was put together to desalt agri waste water this year.
We started distribution of water conservation devices to every house-
hold in the state. Not onlydoes it save fuel because the water people
do not use remains unheated, but more importantly, it involves the
public and increases their understanding for the importance of sup-
porting programs such as this one.
Here is a brief overview on portions of the program which seem likely
candidates for use on remote sensing techniques.
We have carried out some of the activities for quite some time, obtain-
ing needed data by traditional means of aerial photography, as well as
more sophisticated techniques, which can help us make more accurate
decisions and design the best programs to implement these decisions.
Our forestry and wildlife program will seek to reverse the serious
decline in productivity of California's forests by reforesting i.I
million acres and by salvaging ii billion board feet of timber killed
by insects and disease. In addition, through an aggressive vegetation
program, we hope to increase forest production, wildlife habitat and
to improve survival of seedlings along with the growth rate of young
timber.
An important part of vegetation management is chaparal management.
One of the most effective visuals I have ever seen is a statewide
mosaic of Landsat imagery which shows in a striking manner, extent and
location of the chaparal areas of California. The picture has been an
effective aid in demonstrating the need for a new approach to fire con-
trol through vegetation management, as well as possible energy uses
from chaparal and other factors.
To describe, verbally, chaparal problems to a busy legislative committee,
or a busy group of reporters is time consuming and often a hopeless task.
To be able to show them that photograph and allows everyone instantly
to know what the potential was. In fact, we have 100 million acres of
Chaparal in California. Between I0 and 20 million acres of that is
choked with brush, making it relatively unusable. The Landsat derived
photos gives me a position to present my case.
Breaking the fire and flood cycle is an important factor in a mediter-
anean climate like California. We designed a program using helicopters
and new techniques for controlling and burning of dense, chaparal areas
which present fire hazards. This program will need extensive and de-
tailed surveys of vegetation type, age and density, as well as infor-
mation on soils, sludge and geology. I foresee a positive role for
Landsat technology in providing this information in a timely and economic
manner.
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Our Fish & Game program will increase wetlands and other important
habitat of fish and wildlife. It will also improve our ability to
protect habitat in part by making available better data on fish and
wildlife itself. There aremany areas that need research, such as
measuring ocean biomass which constitutes a very critical issue, al-
though virtually no information is at hand. This is an important
factor if we are going to manage the productivity of our glove as we
must, in my opinion, to maintain the quality of our lives.
The data we need can be partly acquired through remote sensing, in-
cluding vegetation, age and density, and human activities on lands that
constitute important habitat. You will note that this dovetails neatly
with the needs of the forestry program. Similar overlaps will be seen
in many of our programs as they develop. This cross functional use in
information is important because it will help reduce costs. Even more
importantly, will help us break past traditions of single research
declsion-making and provide a sound basis for integrated management
wildlife resources.
Our water related programs are intended to help eliminate or reduce
ground water overdraught. Presently, much of the West is committing
suicide, plain and simple. Palm Springs, a lovely vacation community
in California, has 50 golf courses and, as a result, the water table is
dropping six to eight feet a year. In the Rocky Mountain area, water
is being used faster than it is being replaced. The San Joaquln Valley,
one of the richest agricultural areas in the world and very important
in feeding the population of the United States, is also in difficulty
because of overdraught of underground water.
Other problems in these soils include salt buildup and a lack of drain-
age. Increased urban and agricultural water use pressures plus other
factors, require that we implement far better water quality programs,
including soil erosion and other data management techniques. Remote
sensing can help identify the location, amount and type of crops being
irrigated in overdraught areas, the extent of soils poorly drained and
affected by salt. Crop information to help us plan and carry out water
conservation programs, and periodic assessment of soll erosion in re-
lated land use that affect the quality of such areas as the Lake Tahoe
Basin.
One of our most serious areas of neglect in this state, in fact in this
nation, is soils. Civilizations llve and ie historically by how they
treat their soils. We have tended to ignore ours. A statewlde soil
program calls for incentives to maintain and restore soil productivity
on private forest, agricultural and wildlands. Data will be collected
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to monitor areas where erosion is increasing and production declining
due to inadequate management. This data will also be used to expand
soil vegetation mapping, identify variable erosion hazards, and enum-
erate periodically, the location and extent of land uses affecting
corrosion and productivity.
Another factor concerns protecting coastal resources. The coastal re-
sources program will provide a thousand more access sites along the
coast to protect wetlands and natural coastal areas. Remote sensing
will provide basic information to monitor land use changes that threaten
these resources.
The Parks & Recreation Program involves acquiring and developing lands
for park facilities. We need to measure change in our landscape desig-
nated for recreational purposes. For more efficiency in gathering data,
all these programs will help meet the needs of general resource manage-
ment and improve the exchange of data among all levels of government.
As you may know, a number of major satellite link programs are already
in progress within the resources agency. The Department of Water Re-
sources is using satellite imagery to inventory irrigated lands. Re-
search is continuing in crop identification, which will help greatly
in several water management programs.
Irrigated land use and crop data will allow DWR to basically determine
how much water is used, estimate future water use, identify potential
water shortages and implement improvements in reservoir operations.
The Department of Forestry has been using Landsat data for three years.
A general cover classification was created in 1978 and 1979. Cover
types were tabulated by acreage and county. Currently, Forestry and
NASA are working on a second phase to classify data at the species
level in five test counties - Santa Cruz, Humboldt, Nevada, Placer,
Eldorado. Forestry is installing a computer program which will give
it and other users the ability to process Landsat data.
The Department of Conservation is funding an important prime land map
series. They are also developing a statewide computerized farmlands
data base. Both will be updated regularly to provide information on
prime land conversion as requested by the Governor, the state legisla-
ture and other key decision-makers. A proposal has been submitted to
NASA Ames Research Center to explore the possibility of using Landsat
data to update the map series and the data base.
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Researchers at the University of California - Santa Barbara, have
achieved promising results using Landsat and high altitude imagery to
monitor the conversion of farmlands. We hope such techniques will
mean significant dollar savings in these programs. With NASA's help,
the state's electronic data processing system is now being inventoried
to identify what additional equipment and programs are needed to pro-
cess satellite data most efficiently.
What I have given you today is an admitedlyincomplete review of the
resource management needs of California which might be satisfied by
remote sensing. We have many other activities that require research
data and a large number of programs for which to collect such informa-
tion. Many of these programs might benefit from improved techniques
using Landsat data. Last week, we infact, requested and received a
summary of all potential types of data and research of the various
departments that I am responsible for.
In the future, we want to find out where satellite imagery can be used
to improve our resource programs and then plug it in. It promises to
be an exciting program, one with fruits we have not yet imagined.
Finally, we appreciate a letter received from NASA asking us to serve
as a Coordinator of the California Integrated Remote Sensing System.
Since we do have departments already utilizing it, we happily will
accept that opportunity and believe we will increase the use of programs
that you people are responsible for, and look forward to cooperating
with you. The era of single purpose decision-making or single agency
dominance of the budget process is behind us. Success will come in
the future for all of us, as it has with resource agencies in the past
two years, by linking together programs that are relative to each,
focusing on applied process, and enhancing the quality of the state
and the nation through that effort.
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State resource management and role of remote sensing

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