Research assistantship available in remote sensing analysis

Graduate Research Assistant or Project Assistant, Remote Sensing of Urban and Peri-Urban Expansion

The Land Cover Change Lab at the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) has funding for one RA or PA position starting this fall, and continuing through spring and summer, 2015, to conduct research to monitor urban expansion and agricultural land loss across East-Southeast Asia using multiple remote sensing data sets.

The overall goal of the project is to monitor land cover change, and work will be completed using a combination of ENVI, ArcGIS, and command line programming tools.  The student will focus on analysis of time series MODIS satellite data to understand global trends in urban expansion.  For more information, please click here.

Application deadline: October 27, 2014

New article now in press at Remote Sensing of Environment

Check out our recent research Detecting change in urban areas at continental scales with MODIS data in this upcoming issue of Remote Sensing of Environment.  This work, completed as part of Carly Mertes' Master's thesis, demonstrates a methodology for monitoring urban land expansion at continental to global scales using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data.  The new method focuses on resolving the spectral and temporal ambiguities between urban/non-urban land and stable/changed areas by: (1) spatially constraining the study extent to known locations of urban land; (2) integrating multi-temporal data from multiple satellite data sources to classify c. 2010 urban extent; and (3) mapping newly built areas (2000-2010) within the 2010 urban land extent using a multi-temporal composite change detection approach based on MODIS 250 m annual maximum enhanced vegetation index (EVI).  The method is tested in 15 countries in East-Southeast Asia experiencing different rates and manifestations of urban expansion.

Introduction to Environmental Remote Sensing course starts September 2nd

Interested in learning how to map the world with satellite imagery?  Or detect change in dynamic landscapes using advanced machine learning methods?  If yes, then please join us for Introduction to Environmental Remote Sensing this fall, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:30-4:00 pm in room 104 Russell Labs.  For more information, please visit the class website.

Now hiring...

GIS-Remote Sensing Research Assistant, Project Assistant and Hourly positions available. We are hiring students for geospatial analyst jobs starting in September.  Click here for more details.

New results on peri-urbanization in Vietnam

Our research, Monitoring peri-urbanization in the greater Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area, was recently published in Applied Geography.  This research combines commune-level Vietnamese census information, dense time stacks of Landsat satellite data (1990–2012), and several spatial measures to quantify urbanization and peri-urbanization in the greater Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area from 1990 to 2012. The results indicate that 660.2 km2 of cropland was converted to urban uses (a near quintupling of urban land), while 3.5 million persons moved into the region, bringing the total population to nearly 12 million by 2012. The analysis also highlights the rapid, unplanned nature of peri-urban development: approximately one-third of new urban expansion occurs in areas >40 km from the core, with nearly 50% of population expansion occurring in communes classified as peri-urban.  Check out the full article at this site: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0143622814001477.

Carly Mertes graduates with MS in Geography

Congratulations to Carly Mertes who successfully defended her Master's Thesis, "Detecting change in urban areas at continental scales with MODIS data".  This work has recently been accepted for publication in Remote Sensing of Environment, and will be available for download this fall.  For more information on this project, go to: http://landcoverchange.com/gallery_post/global_mapping/

Carly (pictured above) first presented her work at Multitemp 2013 in Banff, Calgary, Canada.

Professor Annemarie Schneider presents the keynote at the Geospatial Summit

Annemarie Schneider gave the invited keynote address at this spring's University of Wisconsin-Madison's Geospatial Summit, on April 24th.  Her talk Mapping a decade of change: urban expansion in East Asia, 2000-2010 focused on recent work to understand urbanization processes in East and Southeast Asia.  The talk is now posted online at the UW Geospatial Alliance website.

Congratulations to Professor Mutlu Ozdogan

Congratulations to collaborator and colleague Mutlu Ozdogan on his promotion to Associate Professor with tenure!  To learn more about Professor Ozdogan's cutting edge research, click here.

New NASA funding to understand land cover change teleconnections

Annemarie Schneider and collaborators received a NASA grant for their project Forest, agricultural, and uban transitions in Mainland Southeast Asia: synthesizing knowledge and developing theory. The project is designed to enhance the conceptual underpinnings of land change science by integrating aspects of land teleconnections, land use transitions, and political ecology to explicitly link land changes in SE Asia to local, national, and international drivers. The work will study transitions in forests, boom crops, and periurban areas using remote sensing imagery, socioeconomic data, focus group discussions and surveys designed to harness local knowledge.

New article published on rapid urbanization in Chinese Cities

Annemarie Schneider and Carly Mertes' article Expansion and growth in Chinese cities, 1978-2010, was published in Environmental Research Letters.  The article can be downloaded at http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/2/024008/