Servir Viz’s Ecosystems
Ecosystems
Earth observations systems related to our ecosystems are not given due consideration as is given for the eco systems for the other purposes social purposes. Currently there are some activities going on for this purpose as well. There are some international or national collaborations and systems. However all this is not enough and much more is need for this.
One of the important aspects of ecosystem conservation is forecasting the changes occurring in it. In this way, we will be able to reduce the environmental threats, and maintain a healthy economy. Moreover, we will be able to sustain wide range ecological services. The society depends upon this.
However, the problem is that this job is not as simple as it appears. Forecasting ecological i.e. environmental and species changes is a formidable challenge in itself. For this, we would require mathematical and modeling approaches. However, they are still in their infancy.
To add to all this complexity scaling method for ecosystem makes the job much more difficult. They increase the number of error and uncertainties in forecasting. For eco forecasting, we need to acquire a wide range of environmental data. The amount of data, which we would have to gather, will depend upon the scale at which we are dealing with. Therefore, it would vary between micro to macro levels. The current tools and devices are not capable of doing this. Therefore, we need to develop new ones or enhance the capability of the current ones.
However, still SERVIR VIZ does play a valuable role in ecosystem management, by different types of useful data.
Land cover
The USAID had funded the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies i.e. the CAST for creating estimates of land cover, climate, and soil. The estimates were to be multi-temporal in nature. CAST is situated at the University of Arkansas and this project was a part of the SERVIR VIZ project.
During this for creating the estimates, special GIS tools were created. CAST and SERVIR VIZ could use these tools for creating data inputs. They were actually carbon sequestration modeling tool, which was developed by Colorado State University.
In the beginning, the tools were used for covering land cover, which was assisted by landsat, and MODIS land estimates. Moreover, the tools were also useful for integrating with ancillary climate and soil map. Moreover, they also were dependant on the carbon sequestration model.
Representatives from different countries from Central America like Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Belize, Honduras, and Panama, were given the permissions to use these tools flexibly for preparing their own carbon stock estimates. For this, they can use their own land cover data. This data had to be provide by either Landsat assisted or/and MODIS assisted. However, they could other land cover maps as well. They could choose any of these different land cover maps.
This project also developed tools for temporal or spatial aggregation and schema conversion in combination with the use of different land cover sources. These tools were downloadable.
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