FRS 002FF — Sec. 001 — (2 unit) — CRN 65527 — M 7:10-9:00pm— 1106 Hart
Remote Sensing – What Can You See From Space?

Instructor: Susan Ustin, Department of Land, Air & Water Resources, College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences

Description: Today, hundreds of remote sensing instruments measure the Earth from space or airplane platforms. We will explore the application of these technologies and how they are being used to address a wide range of environmental problems, at scales ranging from small local observations to global datasets. We will focus enquiry-based discussions around specific environmental concerns (e.g., invasive species, pollution, carbon budgets and carbon sequestration, etc.) and then describe the types of instruments and measurements that can be acquired at different scales to address the problem, how data are analyzed, and how the information can be used to improve management of environmental resources.

Format: The seminar will meet for two hours each week. The time will be divided between informal lecture presentations, demonstrations, discussion, and student presentations. Reading material will be provided (e.g., reviews in BioScience) and access to on-line tutorials. There is no text for the course. Grading: Students will be graded on a term paper and presentation of an oral summary to the class for the grade for 60% of the grade. Completion of the tutorial developed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/start.html) will comprise 15% of their grade, and class participation 25%.

About the Instructor: Susan Ustin has been a professor at UC Davis for over 10 years in the Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources, where she teaches courses on remote sensing and ecosystem and landscape ecology. She is Director of the California Space Institute Center of Excellence at UC Davis and Director of DOE's Western Regional Center for the National Institute for Global Environmental Change. Her interests include the development of new and improved techniques for extracting information from optical remote sensing systems, development of hyperspectral imaging systems, applications of remote sensing data to a wide range of environmental issues. She has recently completed editing a volume of the Manual of Remote Sensing on Natural Resources and Environment.