JOHN R. G. TOWNSHEND

 

Department of Geography

2181A Lefrak Hall

University of Maryland

College Park, Maryland 20742

USA

 

Telephone:  301-405-4050                             Fax:  301-314-9299          E-mail : jtownshe@glue.umd.edu

1.  Personal Information

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EDUCATION

B.Sc.      1967 Geography with subsidiary Geology, University College London.

Ph.D.      1971 Geography (Geomorphology), University College London

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APPOINTMENTS

Present appointments

2001 - 2006         Chair, Department of Geography, University of Maryland, College Park

2001-present       Affiliate member of the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland.

1997-present       Member, Institute for Advanced Computing Studies, University of Maryland, College Park.

1989-present       Professor, Department of Geography, University of Maryland, College Park

Previous Appointments

1997-98               Acting Director Earth Systems Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park.

1989-1996           Chair, Department of Geography, University of Maryland, College Park

1987-1989           Professor, Department of Geography, University of Reading, Reading, UK,

1985-1989           Director, Natural Environment Research Council’s Unit for Thematic Information Systems (NUTIS), University of Reading, UK,

1984-1987           Reader, Department of Geography, University of Reading, Reading, UK

1979-1980           Visiting National Research Council Senior Post-Doctoral, Research Fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

1977-78               Visiting Associate Professor, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, Massachusetts, USA

1972-1984           Lecturer, Department of Geography, University of Reading, Reading, UK.

1970-1972           Lecturer, Department of Geography, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

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MEMBERSHIP OF LEARNED SOCIETIES

American Association for the Advancement of Science

American Geophysical Union

Association of American Geographers

Royal Geographical Society

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2.  Research Activities

a.  Books 

i. Books authored

1.      Millington, A.C., Townshend, J.R.G., Kennedy, P., Saull, R., Prince, S. and Madams, R. 1989 Biomass Assessment: Woody Biomass in the SADCC Region.  Earthscan Publications, London.

2.      Townshend, J.R.G. 1988 Thematic Mapper Data - Characteristics and Use.  Natural Environmental Research Council, Swindon,

3.      Thompson, R.D., Mannion, A.M., Mitchell, C.W., Parry, M. and Townshend, J.R.G. 1986 Processes in Physical Geography, Longman, London.

ii. Books edited

4.      Townshend, J.R.G. (Editor) 1981 Terrain Analysis and Remote Sensing.  George Allen and Unwin, London.

iii. Chapters in books in press

iv Chapters in books published

5.      Townshend, J.R.G., Justice, C.O., Skole, D.L., Belward, A., A. Janetos, Gunawan, I., Goldammer, J., Lee, B. (2004)  Meeting The Goals Of GOFC: an evaluation of progress and steps for the future. In Gutman, G.  et al (Eds.)  Land Change Science, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Netherlands, pp 31-52.

6.      Hansen, M.C., DeFries, R.S., Townshend, J.R.G., Carrol, M., Dimiceli, C. and Sohlberg, R. (2004)  The MODIS 500m global vegetation continuous field products.  In Smits, P. and Bruzone, L. (eds.) Analysis of Multi-temporal Remote Sensing Images, Vol 3, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, pp. 295-301.

7.      Townshend, J.R.G., DeFries, R.S., Zhan, X., Sohlberg, R.A., Hansen, M.C., Dimiceli, C., Carroll, , M.L. and Eastman, J.C. 2002.  MODIS 250m and 500m time series data for change detection and continuous representation of vegetation characteristics, in Bruzzone, L. and Smits, P. (Eds.) Analysis of Multitemporal Remote Sensing Images, World Scientific, Publishing, Singapore, pp. 233-41.

8.      Townshend, J.R.G. 2001  Landsat imagery in Geography, in Smelser, J. and Blates, P.B. (Eds.)  International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Pergamon, v. 12, pp. 8255-60.

9.      Chan, J.C.-W., DeFries, R.S. and Townshend, J.R.G. 2001.  Improved recognition of spectrally mixed land cover classes using spatial textures and voting classifications, In Skarbek, W. (ed.) Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp.217-227.

10.   DeFries, R. S., Townshend, J.R.G. and Los, S.O., 1997.  Scaling land cover heterogeneity for global atmosphere-biosphere models,  in Scale in Remote Sensing and GIS, CRC Press, pp. 231-246.

11.   Spence, T., and Townshend, J.R.G. 1996  The Global Climate Observing System, in Karl, T. (ed.)., Long-term climate monitoring by the Global Climate Observing System, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Netherlands, pp. 1-4.

12.   Townshend. J.R.G. and Skole, D.L. 1995.  The global 1km AVHRR data set.  In P. Mather (editor),  Understanding the Terrestrial Environment, Remote Sensing Data Systems and Networks, John Wiley and Sons, pp. 75-82.

13.   Drake, N.A., Bryant, R.G., Millington, A.C., and Townshend, J.R.G. 1994.  Playa sedimentology and geomorphology: mixture modelling applied to Landsat Thematic Mapper data of Chott el Djerid, Tunisia, Sedimentology and Geochemistry of Modern and Ancient Saline Lakes, Society for Sedimentary Geology Special Publication, No. 50, 125-131.

14.   DeFries, R.S. and Townshend, J.R.G. 1993.  Global land cover: comparison of ground-based data sets with AVHRR data.  In Foody, G.M. and Curran, P. (Eds.) Environmental Remote Sensing from Regional to Global Scales, John Wiley, New York, pp. 84-110.

15.   Townshend, J.R.G., Tucker, C.J. and Goward, S.N. 1993. Global Vegetation Mapping.  In Gurney, R., Foster, J. and Partensin, C. (Eds.) Atlas of Satellite Observations related to Global Change, Cambridge University Press 301-311.

16.   Townshend, J.R.G. 1991 Environmental data bases.  In Maguire, D., Goodchild, M. and Rhind D. (Eds.)  Geographical Information Systems: Principles and Applications.  Longman, UK. , 201-216.

17.   Townshend, J.R.G. 1988.  Remote sensing:  local and global views.  In Clark, M.J., Gregory, K.J., and Gurnell, A.M. (eds.) Horizons in Physical Geography, MacMillan, London 62-85.

18.   Millington, A.C., Jones, A.R., Quarmby, N.A. and Townshend, J.R.G. 1987.  Remote sensing of sediment transfer processes in playa basins.  In Frostick, L. and Reid, I. (eds.).  Desert sediments: Ancient and Modern.  Geol. Soc. of London Special Pub., 369-381.

19.   Tucker, C.J., Townshend, J.R.G., Goff, T.E. and Holben, B.N.  1986.  Continental and global scale remote sensing of land cover.  In Trabalka, J.R. and Riechle, D.E. (eds.) The Changing Carbon Cycle:  a Global Analysis.  Springer-Verlag, New York, 221-241.

20.   Millington, A.C. and Townshend, J.R.G.  1986.  The potential of satellite remote sensing for geomorphological investigations.  In Gardner, V. (ed.) International Geomorphology, John Wiley, London, 331-342.

21.   Townshend, J.R.G.  1983.  Effects of sensor resolving power on the utility of imagery from Earth resources satellites.  In Fuller, R.M. (ed.) Ecological mapping from ground, Earth and Space.  Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Monks Wood, 101-112.

22.   Townshend, J.R.G.  1981.  Regionalization of terrain and remotely sensed data.  In J.R.G. Townshend (Ed) Terrain Analysis and Remote Sensing, George Allen and Unwin, London, 109-132.

23.   Townshend, J.R.G.  1981.  Image analysis and interpretation for land resources survey.  In J.R.G. Townshend (Ed) Terrain Analysis and Remote Sensing, George Allen and Unwin, London, 59-108.

24.   Townshend, J.R.G.  1981.  An introduction to the study of terrain.  In J.R.G. Townshend (Ed) Terrain Analysis and Remote Sensing, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1-15.

25.   Townshend, J.R.G. and Hancock, P.  1981.  The role of remote sensing in mapping surficial deposits.  In J.R.G. Townshend (Ed) Terrain Analysis and Remote Sensing, George Allen and Unwin, London, 204-218.

26.   Justice, C.O. and Townshend, J.R.G.  1981.  The use of Landsat data for land cover inventories of Mediterranean lands.  In J.R.G. Townshend (Ed) Terrain Analysis and Remote Sensing, George Allen and Unwin, London, 133-153.

27.   Justice, C.O. and Townshend, J.R.G.  1981.  Integrating ground data with remote sensing.  In J.R.G. Townshend (Ed) Terrain Analysis and Remote Sensing, George Allen and Unwin, London, 38-58.

28.   Townshend, J.R.G. and Bush, P.  1980.  The materials and origins of the Bahrain playas.  In Doornkamp, J.C., Brunsden, D. and Jones, D.K.C. (eds.) Bahrain Surface Materials Resource Survey, Geobooks, Norwich, 169-191.

29.   Townshend, J.R.G. 1976.  Ground sampling for interpretation of Skylark rocket photography.  In E.C. Barrett and L.C. Curtis (eds.) Environmental Remote Sensing II, Edward Arnold, London, 237-262.

iv Edited journal issues

30.   Justice, C.O. and Townshend, J.R.G. (Editors) 2002.  Land remote sensing using MODIS data.  Remote Sensing of Environment, 83, 1-359.

31.   Townshend, J.R.G. (Editor) 1994. Global data sets for the land from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer,  Special edition of the International Journal of Remote Sensing, 15 (17), 3315-3639.

32.   Townshend, J.R.G. (Editor) 1989. Comparison of passive microwave with near-infrared and visible data for terrestrial environmental monitoring.  Special edition of the International Journal of Remote Sensing, 10 (10), 1575-1690.

b. Articles in refereed journals

i. Articles in review.

33.   Eastman, J.C., Townshend, J.R.G., Justice, C.O., Sohlberg, R., Tucker, C.J.  Roadless areas and forest fires in the western United States, EOS Transactions (in review).

34.   Neigh, C.S.R., Tucker, C.J. and Townshend. J.R.G 2005  Photosynthetic response of maritime boreal forest with increasing surface air temperature.  International Journal of remote Sensing (in review).

ii.  Articles in press

iii Articles published

2005

35.   Zhang, Q., Devers, D., Desch, K., Justice, C.O. and Townshend, J.R. 2005 Mapping Tropical Deforestation In Central Africa,  Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, Volume 101, Nos. 1-3, pp: 69 – 83.

2003

36.   Hansen, M.C. DeFries R.S, Townshend J.R.G., Carroll, M., Dimiceli, C. and Sohlberg R. 2003 A Global percent tree cover at a spatial resolution of 500 meters: first results of the MODIS vegetation continuous fields algorithm, Earth Interactions, v. 7, paper 10, 15pp.

37.   Goward, S.N., Townshend, J.R.G., Zanoni, V., Policelli, F., Stanley, T. Ryan, R., Pagnutti, M., Fletcher, R., Underwood, L. 2003  Acquisition of Earth Science Remote Sensing Observations from Commercial Sources: Lessons Learned from Space Imaging IKONOS data, Remote Sensing of Environment, 88 (1-2), 209-19.

38.   Goward, S.N., Davis, P.E., Fleming, D., Miller, L., Townshend, J.R.G. 2003 Empirical comparison of Landsat 7 and IKONOS multispectral measurements for selected Earth Observation System (EOS) validation sites, Remote Sensing of Environment, 88 (1-2), 80-99.

39.   Huang, C. and Townshend, J.R.G. 2003, A stepwise regression tree for nonlinear approximation: applications to estimating sub-pixel land cover, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 24, 75-90.

40.   Ouaidrari, H. ; El Saleous, N. ; Vermote, E. F. ; Townshend, J. R. ; Goward, S. N. 2003, AVHRR Land Pathfinder II (ALP II) data set: evaluation and inter-comparison with other data sets, International Journal of Remote Sensing 24, no. 1 (2003): 135-142.

2002

41.   Townshend, J.R.G. and Justice, C.O. 2002  Towards operational monitoring of terrestrial systems by moderate resolution imaging, Remote Sensing of Environment, 83, 351-359.

42.   Justice, C.O., Townshend, J.R.G., Vermote, E., Wolfe, R.  El Saleous, N. and Roy, D.  2002.  Status of MODIS, its data processing and products for terrestrial science applications, Remote Sensing of Environment, 83, 3-15.

43.   Hansen, M., DeFries, R., Townshend, J.R.G., Sohlberg, R., Dimiceli, C., and Carrol, M. 2002 Towards an operational MODIS continuous field of percent tree cover algorithm:  Examples using AVHRR and MODIS, Remote Sensing of Environment, 83, 303-319.

44.   Hansen, M., DeFries, R., Townshend, J.R.G., Marufu, L., and Sohlberg, R. 2002 Development of a MODIS tree cover validation data set for Western Province, Zambia, Remote Sensing of Environment, 83, 320-335.

45.   Zhan, X., Sohlberg, R.., Townshend, J.R.G., DiMiceli, C., Carroll, M., Eastman, J.C., Hansen, M., R.S. DeFries, R. S. 2002 Detection of land cover changes using MODIS 250m data, Remote Sensing of Environment, 83, 336-350.

46.   DeFries, R., Houghton, R.A., Hansen, M., Field, C., Skole, D., Townshend, J.R.G. 2002 Carbon Emissions from Tropical Land Use Change Based on Satellite Observations for the 1980s and 90s, Proceeding National Academy of Sciences, 99, 14256-14261.

47.   Kearney, M., Rogers, A.S., Townshend, J.R.G., Stevenson, J.C. Stevens, J.L., Rizzo, E., Stutzer, D. and Sundberg, 2002 K. Large scale decline and collapse of coastal marshes in Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay, USA in response to sea level rise and human activities, EOS Transactions, American Geophysical Union.

48.   Huang, C., Davis, L. S., and Townshend, J.R.G. 2002, An assessment of support vector machines for land cover classification, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 23, 725-749.

49.   Huang, C. Townshend, J.R.G., Liang, S. Kalluri, S.N.V. and Defries, R.D, 2002.  Impact of sensor’s point spread function on land cover characterization, assessment and deconvolution.  Remote Sensing of Environment., 80, 203-212.

2001

50.   Kalluri, S, Desch, K., Curry, T., Alstatt, A., Devers., D., Townshend, J., and Tucker, C.J. 2001  Historical satellite data used to map Pan-Amazon forest cover, EOS Transactions, American Geophysical Union, v.82, No. 18, pp. 201, 206-7.

51.   Steininger, M.K., Tucker. C.J., Townshend, J.R.G., Killeen, T.R., Desch, A., Bell, V., and Peter Ernst, P. 2001 Tropical Deforestation in the Bolivian Amazon, Environmental Conservation, 28, 127-134.

52.   Kalluri, S.N.V., Zhang, Z., JaJa, J., Liang, S. and Townshend, J.R.G. 2001  Characterizing land surface anisotropy from AVHRR data at a global scale using high performance computing, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 22, 2171-2191.

2000

53.   Townshend, J.R.G., Huang, C., Kalluri, S.N.V., Defries, R.S., Liang, S. and Yang, K. 2000.  Beware of Per-Pixel Characterization of Land Cover, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 21,839-843.

54.   Teillet, P.M., El Saleous, N., Hansen, M.C., Eidenshink, J.C., Justice, C.O. and Townshend, J.R.G.,  2000, An Evaluation of the Global 1-km AVHRR Land Data Set, International Journal of Remote Sensing , 21[10], 1987-2022.

55.   Kalluri, S.N.V., Ja Ja, J., Bader, D.A. , Zhang, Z., Townshend, J.R.G and Fallah-Adl, H. 2000 High performance computing algorithms for land cover dynamics using remotely sensed data, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 21, 1513-1536

56.   El Saleous, N., Vermote, E., Justice, C. O., Townshend, J. R.G., Tucker, C.J., and Goward, S.N. 2000.  Improvements in the global biospheric record from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer  (AVHRR), International Journal of Remote Sensing, 21, 1251-1278.

57.   Tucker, C. J. and Townshend, J.R.G. 2000.  Strategies for tropical forest deforestation assessment using satellite data, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 21, 1461-1472.

58.   Hansen, M.C., DeFries, R. S., Townshend, J.R.G. and Sohlberg, R. 2000. Global land cover classification at 1 km spatial resolution using a classification tree approach, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 21, 1331-1364.

59.   DeFries, R. S., Hansen, M. and Townshend, J.R.G. 2000.  Global continuous fields of vegetation characteristics: a linear mixture model applied to multi-year 8km AVHRR data.  International Journal of Remote Sensing, 1389-1414..

60.   Zhan, X., DeFries, R., Townshend, J.R.G., Dimiceli, C., Hansen, M., Huang, C., and Sohlberg, R. 2000.  The global change indicator from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer of NASA’s Earth Observing System, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 21, 1433-1460.

1999

61.   Defries, R. S., Hansen, M., Townshend, J.R.G, Janetos, A. and Loveland, T. 1999.  A New Global 1km Data Set of Percent Tree Cover Derived from Remote Sensing,  Global Ecology and Biogeography, 8 (5), 367-379.

62.   Estes, J.E., Belward, A., Loveland, T., Scepan, J., Strahler, A., Townshend, J.R.G. and Justice, C.O. (1999)The IGBP 1 km Land-Cover Data Set:  The Way Forward., Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 65 (9), 1099-1106.

63.   DeFries, R. S., Townshend, J.R.G. and Hansen, M. 1999. Continuous fields of vegetation characteristics at the global scale.  J. Geophysical Research, 104, 16911-16923.

1998

64.   Zhang, Z., Kalluri, S., Ja’ Ja’, J., Liang, S., and Townshend, J.R.G. 1998. High Performance Algorithms for Global Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function Retrieval, IEEE Transactions in Computational Science and Engineering, 5(4), 16-29.

65.   Justice, C. O., Vermote, E., Townshend, J . R. G., DeFries, R., Roy, D., Hall, D. K., Salomonson, V. V., Privette,, J. L., Riggs, G., Strahler, A., Lucht, W., Myneni, R. B., Knyazikhin, Y., Running, S. W., Nemani, R. M. Wan, Z., Huete, A. R., van Leeuwen, W., Wolfe, R. E., Giglio, L., Muller, J.-P., Lewis, P., and Barnsley, M. 1998. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS):  Land Remote Sensing for Global Change Research, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 36 (4), 1212-1227.

66.   DeFries, R. S., Hansen, M., Townshend, J.R.G. and Sohlberg, R. 1998.  Global land cover classification at 8 km spatial resolution.  The use of training data derived from Landsat imagery in decision-tree classifiers.  International Journal of Remote Sensing, 19, 3141-3168.

67.   Kalluri, S.N.V., Townshend, J.R.G. and Doriswamy, P. 1998. A simple single layer model to estimate transpiration from foliage using multispectral and meteorological data, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 19 (5), 1037-1054.

1997

68.   Skole, D.L., Justice, C.O., Townshend, J.R.G. and Janetos, A. C. 1997.  A land cover change monitoring program:  Strategy for an International effort, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 2, (2-3), 157-175.

69.   DeFries, R., Hansen, M. Steininger, M., Dubayah, R., Sohlberg, R. and Townshend, J.R.G. 1997.  Sub-pixel forest cover in Central Africa from multisensor, multitemporal data, Remote Sensing of Environment, 60, 228-246.

70.   Liang, S., Fallah-Adj, H., Ja’ Ja’, J., Kalluri, S., Kaufman, Y.J. and Townshend, J.R.G. 1997.  An operational atmospheric correction algorithm for Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery, J. Geophysical Res., 102 (17),173-17,186.

1996

71.   Fallah-Adj, H., Ja’Ja’, J., Liang, S., Townshend, J..R.G. and Kaufman, Y. J. 1996.  Fast algorithms for removing atmospheric effects from satellite images.  IEEE Transactions in Computational Science and Engineering, 3 (2), 66-77.

72.   Liang, S. and Townshend, J.R.G. 1996  Parametric Soil BRDF Model: a four-stream approximation.  Remote Sensing of Environment, 55, 1303-1315.

73.   Liang, S. and Townshend, J.R.G. 1996  A modified Hapke model for soil bidirectional reflectance, Remote Sensing of Environment, 55, 1-10.

1995

74.   DeFries, R., Field, C.R., Fung. I., Justice, C.O., Los, S., Matson, M.A., Matthews, E.A., Mooney, H.A., Potter, C.S. Prentice, K.A., Sellers, P.J., Townshend, J.R.G., Tucker, C.J., Ustin, S.L. and Vitousek, P.M., 1995  Mapping the land surface for global atmosphere-biosphere models:  Towards continuous distributions of vegetation’s functional properties, Journal of Geophysical Research, 100, D10, 20,867-20,882.

75.   DeFries, R., Hansen, M. and Townshend, J.R.G. 1995.  Global discrimination of land cover from metrics derived from AVHRR Pathfinder- data sets.  Remote Sensing of Environment, 54, 209-222.

76.