SDSU geographers and ecologists are or will be participating in several earth system science and environmental change research programs funded by NASA, NOAA, USGS, Department of Energy, and other federal agencies. Faculty and students are conducting research pertaining to arctic tundra, coastal wetland, desert, and Mediterranean-type biomes. A strength which has developed is the ability to support medium to coarse resolution satellite image data with low-level measurements and spatial statistical and numerical modeling. Such capabilities for the biome type described above should be in great demand. A primary resource requirement will be to enhance and expand high-end computing hardware, network and graphics capabilities for high-speed "browsing" and transfer of large spatial data sets, and advanced graphics and statistics software for visualizing and analyzing these data sets.
In particular, the launch of a suite of satellite systems by NASA through the Earth Observing System (EOS) will result in a tremendous stream of remote sensing data that will be applicable to earth systems science and resource management research and education at SDSU. The raw data sets will be disseminated to a network of archive centers around the country that are application specific and are called EOS Distribute Active Archive Centers (DAACs). Most of the SDSU access will be through the Land Processes DAAC (LPDAAC) at the EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Raw satellite data will be converted at the LPDAAC into various image and derived map products and available in raster form. SDSU geographers and ecologists will be electronically acquiring these data sets that have typical volumes ranging from 30 megabytes to 10 gigabytes. Other earth systems science data sets of similar volumes from the NSF Long Term Ecological Research network will be acquired electronically from archive centers at UCSD and U. of New Mexico. Besides requiring high speed data transfer for acquiring these valuable earth system science data sets, access to high speed (super) computing is required for spatial statistical analyses and process modeling for large data sets.
Geography is the lead department for the NASA Affiliated Research Center (ARC) at SDSU, with Geological Sciences and College of Business also serving as active participants. As an extension to NASA Commercial Remote Sensing Program (CRSP), SDSU supports companies that are interested in utilizing remote sensing and other geo-spatial technologies for their business operations. Four corporate partners per year participate in the ARC and each has their own remote sensing data requirements. NASA CRSP purchases the data and transfers it to the SDSU ARC, frequently by electronic transfer. Timely transfers of data are often not possible because of the limited throughput of the current network. Similar to the earth system science needs, some commercial partners could benefit from visualization facilities at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), which is an official affiliate to the SDSU ARC. High speed linkage to the SDSC would enable real time, 3-D visual simulations to be run remotely from SDSU.