More 2020 LiDAR released on the Iowa Geographic Map Server
Eight more counties in southwest Iowa have been added to the 2020 LiDAR services: https://arcg.is/1PfriS
Category Archives: Observation
Ladies of Landsat – Many Pathways to becoming Remote Sensing Scientists
The Ladies of Landsat have shared some great USGS case study videos showcasing the paths women and girls can take to become remote sensing scientists. Three scientists stories are highlighted: Jill Deines, Africa Ixmucane Flores-Anderson, and Nikki Tulley. Read more and enjoy their stories below:
Africa Ixmucane Flores-Anderson: Using Landsat to Connect Pace to Village – Africa was inspired to help her local community in Guatemala by mapping water quality with Landsat and is now at monitoring deforestation.
Jill Deines: Using Landsat to Map Agriculture Yields and Irrigation Use – Dr. Jill Deines was was drawn to the bird’s eye view of agriculture plots growing up in the Midwest. Now she uses Landsat to monitor water resources and crop yield.
Nikki Tulley: Speaking a New Language of Landsat – Nikki grew up in the Navajo Nation without running water in her household. As PhD student at University of Arizona and Indigenous scientist, she uses Landsat to track drought conditions in her home community.
Trek with National Geographic Explorer across the world
To kick off Geography Awareness week, explore the amazing journey of geographer, Paul Salopek’s 24,000 mile journey across the globe. During his 10-year journey he documented the places and people he encounter every 100 miles. At each of these milestones, he documents the date, location, elevation, shows a picture of his feet and the sky at that location, and interviews the first person he meets asking them 3 questions: who are you, where do you come from, and where are you going?
Follow his journey through an amazing story map: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/out-of-eden-walk/#section-0.
Greetings from Camp Landsat: Cities and Suburbs
Greetings from Camp Landsat!
Are you exploring any cities this summer? Rain or shine, urban planners use Landsat to take stock of city growth and its environmental impact. The front of this postcard features a natural-color Landsat 8 image of Ocean Flower Island in Hainan, China acquired May 6, 2020.
This week’s camp theme is Cities and Suburbs and focuses on the growth of cities and urban areas as seen over time through Landsat images. Urban growth has impacts on the surrounding environment. Visit Camp Landsat to learn more and experience a time-laspse video of urban growth in Qatar, a storymap about urbanization of vacation towns, and learn about urban heat islands in Minnesota. This week’s camp crafts include Color by Number Image Classification and creating a bird house with a “green roof.” Thank you to our friends at NASA for making this fun summer camp possible!
Are you looking forward to the Landsat 9 Launch?
Landsat 9 is scheduled to be launched on September 16, 2021. This will mark almost 50 years of earth observation by US satellites. In preparation for this historic launch, we will be sharing several interactive documents about the history of the Landsat mission as well as the information about the Landsat 9 mission.
Today we would like to share with you, A History of the Landsat Program, developed by Ellie McGinty at UtahView. It’s an interactive Google Earth Tour, which documents major moments in earth observation history through a combination of maps, text, and curated images starting with the founding of the United States Geological Survey in 1879 through the birth of NASA in 1958 to the conception of Landsat in 1970 and all the way to the present day launching of Landsat 9.
Remembering the 2020 Midwest Derecho
A year ago today a derecho, a series of thunderstorms with hurricane-like winds and heavy rains, struck Iowa with very little warning. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) put together a multi-media story map to tell the tale of this eventful day. Hundreds of thousands of trees were lost or damaged. Homes and buildings were destroyed. Many people lost power for days or even weeks.
Have you visited the NASA’s Earth Observatory? It is a NASA website that helps make satellite imagery relevant to the general public and it is a great place to find images for presentations or use in the classroom. In August 2020, the Earth Observatory featured a comparison of satellite images from July 2020 and August 2020 to show the extent of the derecho damage on Iowa cropland.
Release of Cover Crop ID Toolbox and Handbook
IowaView staff have released the Cover Crop ID Toolbox and Handbook. This toolbox allows users to quickly identify possible cover crop fields using three Sentinel-2 images from the fall, early spring, and late spring downloaded from the Earth Explorer website based on field boundaries supplied by the user. On the project webpage you can download the toolbox which works with both ArcMap or ArcGIS Pro as well as the Cover Crop ID Toolbox Handbook that provides additional details about each step of the tool.
Earth Science Week – Day 7: International Archaeology Day
Today we finishing out Earth Science Week by celebrating International Archaeology Day.
Consider exploring with archaeologists in field by touring at their dig sites at locations such as Pompeii, Italy or Achill Island, Ireland.
Participate in the ArchaeoDoodles Contest by choosing one of 15 archaeological terms and create a graphic or doodle based on the term
Visit the Earth Science Week website for additional activities and resources.
Oh how the years go by: 40 years – Mount St. Helens
This week marks 40 years since the Mount St. Helens eruption. The image above is from the USGS Earthshots trading card series. The images are displayed in color infrared which is useful for showing living vegetation in red. The mountains surrounding Mount St. Helens are primarily forest. Notice the extreme change in the landscape from the 1973 image to the post eruption image in 1983. The damage was extensive and ash covered much of the surrounding forest land.
Additional Resource
Earthshots: Satellite Images of Environmental Change – Mount St. Helens: https://earthshots.usgs.gov/earthshots/Mount-St-Helens#ad-image-0-0
Scroll through the images to watch the forest begin to return as the years go by!
USGS Earthshots: Satellite Images of Environmental Change
The USGS has produced an amazing collection of images (also available as trading cards!) that show Earth’s change over time. The Earthshot collection has a wide variety of examples of change over time including:
– natural phenomena changes (glaciers, deserts,)
– social change (city growth,)
– human interaction with the natural world (mining, deforestation, agriculture,)
– natural disasters (hurricanes, tornado damage, flooding.)
Below are two examples of the trading cards, Mount St. Helens pre/post volcanic explosion and Las Vegas, Nevada population growth over time.
If you view a location on through the browser you will get about 5 images you can review as well as context about the images.
Other Resources: Tracking Change Over Time (teacher guide): https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/133/pdf/tracking-packet_web.pdf
Lesson Plan – Investigating Deforestation Throught An Earth Systems View Using Landsat: https://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/lesson-plans/investigating-deforestation-through-earth-systems-view-using-landsat
IowaView has trading cards available. Please contact Amy Logan for more information.