Dr. Samuel Goward and his research group are working on a study that exploits the combination of two key datasets, the Landsat historical record and plot records from the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, for the purpose of developing a quantitative understanding of forest disturbance patterns in North America.  The primary goals of this study are:
 

Dr. James Kellner is undertaking research to understand the impacts of ungulate removal in dryland ecosystems of Hawaii.   At more than 3,500 kilometers from the west coast of North America and over 6,000 from continental Asia and Australia, the Hawaiian Islands are the most isolated archipelago on earth. A consequence of their extreme isolation is that entire groups of plants and animals that are common on the continents never made it to Hawaii – at least not until humans arrived and began to transport new species, both deliberately and accidentally as stowaways.  Hawaii contains no species of native ground-dwelling mammals, and ecosystems there evolved in isolation from typical herbivore pressures.

A recent interdisciplinary, international collaboration between UMD’s Department of Geographical Sciences, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the Namibian Department of Hydrology, and the University of Namibia is employing SensorWeb technologies and social science research to advance flood monitoring and predictive Decision Support Systems in rural areas. Economic geographer Julie Silva and physical geographer Rob Sohlberg have teamed up with NASA engineers and local partners to take a multidisciplinary approach to the study of flood detection and mitigation.

The Suomi NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) mission (named after the father of satellite meteorology Verner E. Suomi from University of Wisconsin) was successfully launched on Oct. 28, 2011 at 2:48 a.m. PDT/ 5:48 a.m. EDT, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It opened its door on November 21rst and one of the first images acquired by VIIRS was generated by researchers of the Department of Geographical Sciences, and they continue to play a critical role in monitoring the instrument calibration during its commissioning phase.