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Invasive species
Chair: Jeff Morisette
Rapporteur: Neal Most
Discussion Questions:
  • What are the decision support needs regarding invasive species that can be addressed with current and future NASA observations and models?
  • What objectives should the invasive species program element seek to meet by 2011?
  • What key questions about the ecology of invasive plants can be addressed with remote sensing observations and measurements of terrestrial, aquatic and atmospheric processes?
  • What does the invasive species program element draw from the carbon cycle and ecosystems focus area?
  • What are the linkages between the invasive species program element and the ecological forecasting program element?
Comments:
--- Please forward any additional comments to the relevant Program Manager at NASA Headquarters. ---
I think that it is important to move beyond identifying potential invaded habitat type to actual maps of invasive weed locations if they are to be used in models and/or for management actions.
Further, managers need to evaluate the efficacy of management so they need to have before and after maps of weed distributions.

– submitted by Susan Ustin at 2006-08-24 15:29:54
As noted we need to move beyong habitat suitability mapping of potential habitats but not just actual locations. We need to improve predictive science and develop mechanistic models for temporal change (spread models). We need to improve the selection and treatment of predictor variables in order to make models realistic, accurate, and mechanistic. Dynamic variables (as opposed to topographic) need to be stressed (e.g., soil moisture).
– submitted by Robert (Bob) Crabtree at 2006-08-22 08:32:59
A requirement for our DEVELOP project is quick and immediate contact with the ultimate end user. The term for this end user has changed over the years from "stakeholder", to "customer", to "collaborator", to "partner", to who knows what is in vogue next. What this really means is some bloke on the ground wants to know what NASA is doing for him/her to help him manage his/her resoucre.

In all the questions asked by our highly regarded Program Managers, not one mention is made of the ultimate user. Whether s/he uses a formal computer program or, as described today, a black box with wire coming out of it, a decision support tool guides the direction a resource manager takes. No matter how slick the images returened from a NASA mission/senor, no matter how many great views of the Great Plains can be seen from orbit, the manager on the ground will not respond to pretty pictures on the evening news or weather forecasts. S/he will repond to what affects his/her pocket book. Is it too wet to harvest? Is it too cold to plant? Can satellite coverage impart that information? If not, then why should I support a bill in Congress that won't help me?

Before we start a DEVELOPProject, we answer these questions.

A further note. If I start a VIRRS experiment on my computer system in order to simulate what data stream will be coming down from that satellite and I approach a resource manager with that information, I should be ready to run and hide because I've given him and his DSS synthetic results from a sensor that has not been launched. These are real-world folks who can not and will to make resource use decisions based on simulated outcomes from NASA missions that won't lauch for years to come.

Use the current day managers and the current day sensors to make management decisions. Don't rely on what is to come (and may be cancelled) to make resource management decisions. Get, as we do in DEVELOP, concreate goal, expectations, and results given what is in the sky now.

– submitted by Joseph (Jay) Skiles at 2006-08-22 00:21:57


 


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