Thursday, February 12, 1998
ATHENS, Ga. - The federal space agency NASA has awarded a grant of $202,995 to the University of Georgia’s Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science (CRMS). The funding, along with some $80,000 in matching money from UGA, will be used to purchase state-of-the-art computer equipment for long-term projects that monitor environmental change in parts of the Southeast.
The cooperative study headed by CRMS also includes researchers from the National Park Service, the UGA Marine Institute on Sapelo Island, the Coweeta GIS Laboratory at the UGA Institute of Ecology and the Coweeta Experiment Station operated by the U.S. Forest Service in Otto, N.C.
"We are seeking to take advantage of the high volume of image data projected to be acquired by Earth Observing System satellites in the next three years," said Roy Welch, director of CRMS. "We will be at the hub of the image processing and data archival activities for the cooperating units."
Projects already underway that will be extended by new equipment purchased under the NASA grant include mapping and developing a vegetation database for the Everglades; assessing the effects of urban expansion; investigating the coastal ecosystems of Georgia and South Carolina; and studying how land-use changes in the southern Appalachians affect forest hydrology and water quality. Faculty involved in the projects also share the results of the research with both undergraduate and graduate students.
Welch said the computer equipment will include a high-capacity server, workstations, PCs, laptop computers and other equipment.
WRITER: Phil Williams, UGA
CONTACT: CRMS