1998: CRMS was named a NASA Center of Excellence.

2009: CRMS was given a Special Achievement in GIS Award by ESRI.

2011: Marguerite Madden was awarded the SAIC Estes Memorial Teaching Award by ASPRS.
          Shadrock Roberts received the Z/I Imaging Award (ASPRS)
          Sergio Bernardes received the William A. Fischer Memorial Scholarship (ASPRS)

Tornado Damage in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Before and after images (on left and right, respectively) showing a 17-mile long track left by an EF4 tornado that toppled thousands of trees at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and vicinity on April 27, 2011. Images are band 543 color composites (RGB) acquired by the Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper sensor on May 27 2010 and May 30 2011. 

Marguerite Madden gave a Keynote Address on this topic in Hannover, Germany in Spring, 2011, entitled Multi-temporal Imagery Supporting Earth Studies and Sustainability.

Acquisition of Airborne Lidar and Orthoimagery for National Parks, Forests and Parkways in the Southern Appalachian Mountains

Researchers at the University of Georgia (UGA) Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science (CRMS) and Gainesville State College (GSC) Institute for Environmental Spatial Analysis (IESA) are collaborating with PhotoScience, Inc. to acquire and quality control check lidar and orthoimagery of forest areas in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Funded by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), this project meets the objectives of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) initiative by creating jobs, saving jobs and training students for high skill positions in geospatial technology. Leaf-off lidar data were acquired at 1-m resolution of the Tennessee portion of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park (GRSM) and adjacent Foothills Parkway, both of which are managed by the National Park Service (NPS) and are of high priority for national/global interests due to biodiversity, rare and endangered species and protection of some of the last remaining virgin forest in the U.S. High spatial resolution (30 cm) leaf-off multispectral orthoimagery have been acquired for both the Chattahoochee National Forest (CNF) and the GRSM. The data will also augment the National Elevation Dataset (NED) and orthoimage database of The National Map within information that can be used by many researchers in applications of point cloud LiDAR and high resolution DEMs and orthoimage mosaics. The successful acquisition of LiDAR and orthoimagery for valuable forest areas of the southeastern U.S. completes a unique data set that is critical to NPS resource managers, local government planners and scientists of landscape-scale processes.

Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science

The Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science (CRMS) at The University of Georgia undertakes interdisciplinary research projects requiring the development of image and map data processing technologies for applications in the physical, biological and mapping sciences. 

The Specialties of the Center's multidisciplinary staff that encompass the full range of geographic information science include remote sensing/digital image processing, digital photogrammetry, image interpretation, geographic information systems (GIS), Global Positioning System (GPS) surveys and software development focused on applications in ecology, forestry, geography, geology and hydrology.

CRMS is currently finishing the most detailed orthophoto and LiDAR mapping ever done for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The CRMS has completed highly detailed vegetation maps of national parks in the southeastern United States,  including Everglades, Biscayne and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks and Big Cypress National Preserve. Maps of additional parks, historic sites and battlefields (including Cowpens, Cumberland Gap, Mammoth Cave, Blue Ridge Parkway, among others) are underway.  

A multiyear contract with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) focused on assessing the potential of images recorded by the new generation of high- resolution commercial satellites for creating highly detailed map databases of littoral regions.   Other CRMS projects have included evaluations of the cartographic potential of Landsat, SPOT and  Shuttle Imaging Radar, photogrammetric assessments of erosion from cropland throughout the United States, automated feature extraction from satellite images for digital map revision and GIS studies of agricultural land, wetlands and tropical forests to assess man's impact on the environment.