Courtesy of James Closs
Four sites in Colorado and Utah where joint USGS-NASA teams are conducting studies of the invasive species, tamarisk.
While aerospace engineers at NASA's Goddard Laboratories, northeast of Washington, DC, look down from the heavens, ecologists at a neighboring United States Geological Survey (USGS) have a closer view. Scientists from these disparate fields, ecology and aerospace, have begun collaborating in hopes of stemming a huge and ever-growing invasive species problem, one estimated to cost $120 billion per year in the United States alone.
NASA and the USGS, along with agencies including the National Park Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, have teamed up to marry satellite technology with ecological field studies in hopes of better forecasting when and where invasive species might strike next. Temporal, spatial, and spectral data from satellites will help indicate the movements of invasive vegetation and wildlife as well as the ...
