Cooperative Agreement for affiliated Partner with Colorado Plateau Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU)

U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Powell Center is offering a funding opportunity for research on “A National Topographic Change Mapping and Monitoring System.” The project will design a national scale mapping system to enable an ongoing nationwide assessment of multi-scale 3D changes in the Earth’s surface, both natural and anthropogenic in origin, and to demonstrate its functional capabilities for the science community. The working group will address all aspects needed for a comprehensive national topographic change mapping and monitoring capability, including data, change detection algorithms and standards, uncertainty, temporal and spatial scales, and applications. The result will be a conceptual model for a national topographic change system and the outline for an operational framework. Activities will include 1) assembly of multi-temporal remote sensing data and multi-temporal elevation data from different remote sensing platforms and historical records; 2) test and apply topographic change detection and quantification approaches; 3) evaluate the importance of spatial and temporal scales and how-to best address these in a topographic mapping and monitoring system; 4) produce data and tools, including a multi-scale continuously updated national 3D change map.