Working Group on Vegetation Structure
In the past few years, several groups have been assembled to help NASA understand vegetation 3-D structure and plan for future such measurements from space. Some of these “groups” have been extremely informal and assembled ad hoc -- others have resulted from ROSES solicitations. The Vegetation Structure Working Group is an overarching umbrella group that engages members of all such groups. It includes:
- Principal Investigators (PI) funded by the NASA Terrestrial Ecology (TE) Program and conducting research on vegetation structure
- Members of the (former) organizing committee for the VEG3D & BIOMASS: Science and Measurement Requirements for Future Spaceborne Missions workshop (held in Charlottesville, VA, in 2008)
- Members of the NASA HQ-appointed Deformation, Ecosystem Structure, and Dynamics of Ice (DESDynI) Science Study Group and DESDynI Project Science staff responsible for DESDynI ecosystem structure requirements
- Members of the competitively selected Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite – II (ICESat-II) Science Definition Team responsible for the ICESat-II ecosystem structure requirements
The Vegetation Structure Working Group meets periodically, usually in a teleconference call, to share research and mission study results, discuss current issues, and provide community-based inputs relating to the ecosystem structure aspects of DESDynI and ICESat-II. Members of the Vegetation Structure Working Group share expertise on particular instrument technologies, data analysis techniques, and/or scientific uses.
They discuss urgent issues coming out of early DESDynI and ICESat-II planning and identify needed work. They may identify needs for coordinated field, aircraft, and satellite data collections relevant to these missions and/or to the NASA TE research being conducted.