This project is affiliated with several on-going ARC projects which support the Environmental Monitoring Focus Area being developed at San Diego State University in response to NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) Focus area program for ARC Universities. This project seeks to enhance the utility of remote sensing data by developing Web-based data warehousing, on-line mapping tools and analytic functions. These services will be provided through user subscription and linked to shared data bases. The ability to conduct real-time analysis of web-based geospatial data sets has innumerable applications, offering potential value to users of remote sensing data and GIS everywhere. The great power of GIS and remote sensing, after all, lies in its analytic capabilities, despite its more common use to generate eye-pleasing maps. This project responds to a long-term need expressed by participants in regional programs for natural habitat conservation. Implementation of tools for spatial analysis using geo-spatial data on the Internet would simultaneously provide several functions expressly desired by users:

1. Provide the foundation for a much-needed data warehouse for efficient storage and access of spatially explicit information on regional habitat preserves;

2. Provide interactive Web-based mapping facilities for displaying remote sensing images and geo-spatial data for natural habitat management;

3. Facilitate data sharing across subregions, thus enabling monitoring activities and analysis at the system-wide, regional scale;

4. Facilitate cost-sharing, through data sharing and sharing of analytic tools;

5. Provide preserve managers and monitors with the ability to perform the critical real-time analysis that is essential to tracking habitat conditions and the status of preserves.