JOHN
R. G. TOWNSHEND
Department of
Geography
2181A Lefrak
Hall
Telephone:
301-405-4050 Fax: 301-314-9299 E-mail
: jtownshe@glue.umd.edu
________________________________________________________________________
EDUCATION
B.Sc. 1967 Geography with subsidiary Geology, University College
London.
Ph.D. 1971 Geography (Geomorphology),
________________________________________________________________________
APPOINTMENTS
Present appointments
2001 - 2006 Chair,
Department of Geography,
2001-present Affiliate
member of the
1997-present Member,
Institute for Advanced Computing Studies,
1989-present Professor,
Department of Geography,
Previous Appointments
1997-98 Acting
Director Earth Systems Science Interdisciplinary Center,
1989-1996 Chair,
Department of Geography,
1987-1989 Professor,
Department of Geography,
1985-1989 Director,
Natural Environment Research Council’s Unit for Thematic Information Systems
(NUTIS),
1984-1987 Reader,
Department of Geography,
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,
1972-1984 Lecturer,
Department of Geography,
1970-1972 Lecturer,
Department of Geography,
________________________________________________________________________
American
Association for the Advancement of Science
American
Geophysical
Association of
American Geographers
Royal Geographical Society
________________________________________________________________________
i. Books authored
1.
2. Townshend, J.R.G. 1988 Thematic
Mapper Data - Characteristics and Use.
Natural Environmental Research Council,
3. Thompson, R.D., Mannion, A.M., Mitchell, C.W., Parry, M.
and Townshend, J.R.G. 1986 Processes in
Physical Geography, Longman,
ii. Books edited
4. Townshend, J.R.G. (Editor) 1981 Terrain Analysis and Remote Sensing. George Allen and Unwin,
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,
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.,
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.
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,
18.
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.
20.
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.
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
28. Townshend, J.R.G. and Bush, P. 1980.
The materials and origins of the
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,
iv Edited journal issues
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.
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
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
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.,
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
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,
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.,
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
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
62. Estes, J.E., Belward, A.,
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
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.