Sevilleta Acquires New GIS Data

Early this year, the Sevilleta LTER participated in a NASA project that included the acquisition of one-meter resolution multispectral imagery covering the entire 100,000 ha Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge. Funding for this project was provided by NASA’s Stennis Space Center under the Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) program. The grant was awarded to C. A. Benkelman of Positive Systems, Whitefish, MT.

Working with Sevilleta LTER GIS scientist Greg Shore, the Positive Systems team of researchers and aircraft pilots took images of the Sevilleta NWR on 28-29 January 1998, from a low-flying fixed-wing aircraft using the Positive Systems’ ADAR System 5500 airborne sensor. Approximately 2,000 image frames of size 1500 x 1000 pixels (1500 m x 1000 m) each were acquired in four spectral bands, approximately matching the first four bands of the Landsat Thematic Mapper. Images were acquired with 30 percent overlap and sidelap, and will be mosaiced to form a composite Sevilleta NWR image of approximately six GB in size (that’s right—GBs, not MBs!). The composite image is expected to be completed in early April 1998.

The acquisition of this high resolution, multispectral imagery will assist the Sevilleta LTER program in refining its vegetation map and process modelling studies. In addition, because the imagery will form an accurate GIS data layer, the imagery will be used to calibrate the extensive aerial photo holdings of the LTER for the Sevilleta field sites. These improvements in GIS coverage of the Sevilleta will be of considerable value to the entire research community studying the ecology, geology and anthropology of the central Rio Grande valley.
 
Please see the web site up for the ADAR project: http://sevilleta.unm.edu/collaboration/nasa/adar/