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• Introduction

• Mission Statement

• Technical Approach

• Related Opportunity

This proposed project is one of several ARC projects supporting the Environmental Monitoring Focus Area at San Diego State University in response to NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) Focus Area program for ARC universities.

This program is an infrastructure-support project to provide basic operational remote-sensing capabilities to a diverse user community of natural resource managers.

The technical and applications assessments of this proposed study will be beneficial to state, regional, local, and tribal governmental agencies.

The project will involve several agency and commercial partners, with the first operational user most likely being The Nature Conservancy of Orange County, California.

The goal of this project is to extend the previous NASA ARC project, “Web-based Geospatial Information Services and Analytic Tools For Natural Habitat Conservation and Management” by responding to a need for wireless, web-based analytical tools for remotely sensed imagery required by participants in regional management programs for natural-habitat conservation.

The prototypes developed in the previous NASA ARC project (http://map.sdsu.edu/arc) demonstrated a great potential for adopting web-based tools and Internet map servers for conservation planning and other resource management in Southern California.

This project will utilize state-of-the-art Java programming technology, mobile GIS application software (ArcPad 6.0, ArcIMS 4.0, and Image Web Server), global positional systems (GPS), and wireless networking technologies (IEEE 802.11b, Wi-Fi standard) to provide park rangers and other resource mangers with integrated mobile geospatial information services that will support and help optimize their field-based management tasks.

• The web-based analytical tools will be enhanced by adding new web-mapping and analytical functions.
  
  
• Image web servers will provide effective image compression and dissemination for the access of remote sensed imagery.
  
  
• Mobile GIS applications (ArcPad) will be used to access wireless remote sensed imagery and GIS data via Wi-Fi wireless communications.

Natural habitat preserve managers and scientists can access the Internet map servers via their mobile devices, such as pocket PC’s, notebooks, or personal digital assistants (PDA’s) during their field trips. Monitoring and change detection of natural habitat areas can be accomplished in real time by integrating GPS, wireless communication, and Internet Mapping facilities.

Implementation of tools for mobile GIS applications via wireless communications would simultaneously provide several functions expressly desired by users:

• Provide a working prototype for the development of mobile GIS solutions. This prototype will be used to demonstrate the potential capability for field workers, such as park rangers and other resource managers to access and update geospatial information.
  
  
• Provide wireless web-based mapping facilities for displaying remote-sensing images and geo-spatial data for natural habitat management
  
  
• Provide managers with integrated GPS/GIS/remote-sensing capabilities to perform critical real-time monitoring and analysis that is essential to tracking habitat conditions and the status of preserves.