Dr. John Townshend

 
Education

PhD  Geography (Geomorphology), University College London, 1971
BA   Geography with subsidiary Geology, University College London, 1967

Research Interests

• Landcover dynamics
• Remote Sensing
• Environmental information systems

Dr. Townshend's broad interests relate to how and why the vegetative land cover of the earth is changing and how this impacts key biogeochemical cycles especially the carbon cycle. The tools that are used in his research are primarily remote sensing earth observation sensors. He is also interested in the development of new earth science information systems to ensure the improved use and distribution of key products and data sets. In particular, the research has focused on improving our abilities to depict and monitor changes in land cover at regional and global scales. This work is carried out in the context of the importance of such changes on climate variability, especially through the global carbon cycle, biodiversity and sustainability. He has adopted the philosophy that monitoring the rates and character of change is important in its own right, separate from model and theory testing, because some observations are so fundamental that consistent long-term monitoring must be ensured.

He co-chairs the international activity known as Integrated Observations of the Land (IGOL), which is establishing the long term operational observations of the terrestrial environment.

He is an affiliate of both the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center and the Institute for Advanced Computing Studies, University of Maryland.

• A Land Cover Earth Science Information Partner: The Global Land Cover Facility
• Enhanced Land Cover and Land Cover Change Products From MODIS

Representative Papers

Huang, C., Kim, S., Altstatt, A., Townshend, JRG, Davis, P., Kuan S., Tucker, C.J., Rodas, O., Yanosky, A., Clay, R.,

Musinsky, J. (2007)

Rapid loss of Paraguay's Atlantic forest between 1970s and 2000 and the status of protected areas, Remote Sensing of Environment, 106 460 - 466.

Brown de Colstoun, E. C., R. S. DeFries, and J. R. G. Townshend (2006),

Evaluation of ISLSCP Initiative II satellite-based land cover data sets and assessment of progress in land cover data for global modeling, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D22S07, doi:10.1029/2006JD007453.

Gilruth, P.T., Kalluri, S. Jon W. Robinson, J.W., Townshend, J.R., Lindsay, F., Davis, P., Orr, B.J. 2006

Measuring performance: Moving NASA Earth science products into the mainstream user community, Space Policy, 22, 165-175.

Song, K., Huang, C., Townshend, J. and Kim, D. 2005,

Improved methods of automating the mapping of deforestation, Proceedings 9th International Symposium on Physical Measurements and Signatures in Remote Sensing, Eds Liang, S., Liu, J., Li, X., Liu, R. and Schaepman, M., pp. 571-3.

Townshend, J., Tsolmon, R., Skole, D., Schmullius, C. Herold, M., Justice, C., Csiszar, I., Goldammer, J. 2005,

GOFC-GOLD An international effort to improve the provision of operational information on Land Cover and Fire. Proceedings of the First National Conference on Remote Sensing/GIS in Mongolia, 2 May, 2005 Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, pp. 15-23.

See Dr. Townshend's personal website for full lists of publications and projects.