Theme 1: Tracking habitat change through new integrative approaches and products
Terrestrial, marine, and freshwater habitats worldwide are currently undergoing rapid change. Environmental change imparts consequences for these habitats and their associated ecological functions and ecosystem services for humans. Recently formed assessment, research, and observation initiatives and science-policy platforms, such as the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Future Earth, and the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON), aim to address the magnitude and potential effects of habitat transformations. Satellite remote sensing offers an unrivalled tool for tracking, understanding, and contributing to projected habitat change at the planetary scale and across biomes by providing measurements that contribute to models of biomass, productivity, land cover, sea surface condition, and even species distribution and abundance. Finer-scale remote sensing from aircraft and in situ platforms (e.g., camera traps, acoustic sensors, small drones, etc.), including citizen science and other crowdsourcing methods (e.g., local habitat observations or photographs), are often able to effectively complement satellite data and foreshadow the development of new integrated products. Effective application of remote sensing data and tools in this area requires the development and evaluation of novel cross-scale and -platform approaches that address uncertainty and, where possible, benefit from the integration of crowd-sourced information. The session and associated discussions aim to address the following questions: How can the CC&E community best assess ecological changes and biodiversity loss at a global scale and foster a program that tackles the next generation of associated cutting edge science questions? Can we develop more effective and integrated global products to capture habitat change and relate it to changes in biodiversity, carbon, land cover, water, and other ecosystem services? Which sensor platforms, citizen science activities, and integrative modeling efforts offer the strongest and scientifically most rigorous additional contributions to quantifying habitat change? Which larger research questions and observation needs emerge, and how can they inform NASA priorities?
Theme 2: Landscapes to coasts: understanding Earth system connections
One challenge in Earth system science is understanding the specific effects of climate variability and change, disturbances, and land management decisions on the environment. A particular area of interest is the effect of these processes on ecological functioning (i.e., cycling of elements), structure (i.e., land cover), and composition (i.e., biodiversity), and their biological and biogeochemical impact(s) as they propagate from watersheds to the coastal zone. Watersheds connect upland landscapes to coastal marine or ocean margin waters, with water serving as the primary link between fundamentally different terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The terrestrial runoff and river discharge that connect these regions varies over wide spatial and temporal scales, from short term weather events to longer climate induced variability. Furthermore, there is a need to understand and quantify the impacts and feedbacks of human influences on hydrology and downstream waterways as well as coastal zone biology and ecology. Watersheds have an important interplay with human population and economics, especially in regions of high population density (e.g., megacities).Over the past decade, NASA-supported research has combined satellite observations, ecological models, and hydrological models to understand the way in which hydrology and biogeochemistry links upland ecosystems and landscapes with coastal marine ecosystems, including the human dimension. This session will focus on the unique role that NASA technologies, assets, observations, and models play in the Landscapes to Coasts Interdisciplinary Science topic. It will also examine what the science community has learned in the last decade, and examine the scientific, observational, and modeling approaches that could further our understanding of the landscapes to coasts and their Earth System connections.
Theme 3: Future research direction and priorities: perspectives relevant to the next decadal survey
The past decade has seen significant advances in using space-based observations for understanding critical science questions about the Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems (CC&E). The first Decadal Survey for Earth Science, published in 2007 as 'Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond', set the priorities for the type of Earth-observing systems that NASA, USGS, and NOAA should invest in for the following 10 years. As planning for the next decadal survey is underway, it is imperative that the CC&E community identifies and prioritizes research questions for the next decade These questions would inform measurements needed to both continue long-term observational records as well as fill in key observational gaps to advance scientific understanding within CC&E. In this session, we will: briefly review the state of CC&E science and missions from the last decade; review the current state of the science and gaps; and provide a path forward towards addressing those scientific gaps.
Theme 4: Human influence on global ecosystems
Human activities alter terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem structure and function in both direct and indirect ways. Human-caused land use and land cover change can fundamentally alter habitat suitability, biogeochemical cycling, and hydrologic patterns. More subtly, human-caused changes to the composition of the planet's atmospheric and oceanic systems may contribute indirectly to systemic changes in productivity and disturbance rates. At the same time, ecosystem change can threaten ecosystem services upon which humans depend, such as supporting services (e.g. nutrient cycling), provisioning services (e.g. clean water, subsistence), regulating services (e.g. climate, floods), and cultural services (e.g. recreation).NASA sensors and model assets are among our best tools to identify and track relationships between human activities and changes to ecosystem structure and function at multiple scales. These assets allow us to: measure human impacts; provide critical observations to the initialization and evaluation of Earth system models; and highlight the role of human activities with regard to ecosystem dynamics. Science that highlights human/ecosystem connections is well-suited for practical applications, for example helping to identify: strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation; potential catastrophic ecological tipping points; and reasonable expectations for future resource management.Human activities are intimately linked through management practices and subsequent feedback to Earth's ecosystems. This theme explores the current and future state of this dynamic relationship.
General Contributions
For Posters that do not fit in the above themes
Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) Posters
For Posters representing NASA CMS Projects
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