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Arizona Remote Sensing Center (ARSC)

The Arizona Remote Sensing Center was established in 1972 through a $50,000 NASA grant awarded to the Office of Arid Lands Studies (OALS) for the purpose of identifying desert terrains and taking inventory of desert resources using remote sensing and spatial analysis. Since its inception, ARSC has been funded by a wide range of International, Federal and State agencies to analyze airborne and satellite remote sensing data and other geospatial information utilizing advance image processing and geographic information science computer technologies. Over the years, ARSC has continued to obtain various extramural projects, including the first detailed map of the vegetation of Grand Canyon National Park, performing environmental sampling to monitor indicators of desertification, conducting studies of biotic diversity and Native American agriculture, and monitoring of Saudi Arabia’s rangelands. In more recent years, ARSC has created a national environmental monitoring system for the government of Malawi in southern Africa, an NSF-sponsored study of the impacts of changing population dynamics in the arid regions of Africa, and the development of web based tools to put advanced remote sensing data into the hands of natural resource managers. ARSC is currently working with Federal, State and local governments to address natural resource management problems and the development of decision support systems for NASA.

ARSC serves as a focus for remote sensing and spatial analysis research within the College of Agriculture and Life Science. ARSC encompasses digital image processing facilities for satellite and aerial video data, geographic information systems (GIS) for managing and analyzing map and image data, air photo interpretation equipment, aerial video systems, and a collection of satellite, aerial photography, and aerial video data for southern Arizona and the southwest and selected areas of Africa and South America. The primary activities of the center focus on research supported by basic and applied research contracts and grants to develop and apply remote sensing and GIS technologies to problems in agriculture, natural resource management, and the environment. ARSC develops and maintains a number of scientific web sites in response to a large demand for information and data and the need to integrate computer technology into decision support. In response and in conjunction with a number of institutions, ARSC has created and now maintains the Arizona Regional Image Archive [ARIA] (http://aria.arizona.edu), RangeView (http://rangeview.arizona.edu), Wild Fire Alternatives [Walter] (http://walter.arizona.edu). ARSC is also dedicated to providing graduate and undergraduate students with the opportunity to acquire new knowledge and skills in remote sensing and geospatial analysis. ARSC research projects are staffed by students from a variety of campus Departments including: the Arid Lands Resource Sciences Ph.D. Program, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Geography and Regional Development, Geosciences, Hydrology and Water Resources, Management and Information Systems, and the School of Renewable Natural Resources.

Current and recent projects have been conducted by ARSC throughout the American Southwest, Mexico, western and southern Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and China. Highlights of these activities include: (1) Evaluation of remote sensing methods for inventory and mapping of desert resources and vegetation mapping at National Parks and Monuments (U.S. National Park Service), (2) Development of a system for monitoring rangeland condition and desertification in Saudi Arabia using satellite and aerial video data (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), (3) Development of rule-based and geostatistical models of vegetation distribution under varying climatic regimes within southern Arizona (USGS Biological Resources Division), (4) Development of an environmental monitoring system for the government of Malawi (USAID), (5) Development of methods for predicting the location of wildlife using satellite derived vegetation greenness data (U.S. National Park Service), (6) Development of strategies for improving the dissemination of NASA science results and data among state and local governments (NASA), (7) Development of web based tools to access multitemporal satellite data for natural resource management (http://rangeview.arizona.edu) (NASA/Raytheon), (8) Development of a web based strategic wildfire model that integrates the climate and human dimensions of wildfire probability and values at risk (http://walter.arizona.edu) (U.S. EPA)

More Information: http://arsc.arid.arizona.edu/