Identifying drought-prone areas and developing an early warning system for crop damage. Protecting biologically diverse areas of the National Park System with a trail monitoring tool. Confirming flooded areas to better inform decision-makers during a disaster.

Each program area supports a variety of projects that utilize Earth observations to identify challenges around the world and create innovative solutions. Our portfolio demonstrates the benefits of using NASA Earth observations to enhance decision-making and improve life on Earth.

Sort by program area to find specific projects or explore them all below.

 

Quantifying Forest Vertical Structure Using Spaceborne Lidar: A GEOBON Essential Biodiversity Variable Application in Colombia

Principal Investigator

Patrick Jantz

More comprehensive mapping of earth’s biodiversity is a priority to help prevent further biotic impoverishment and maintain ecosystem functions and services. Intergovernmental organizations, national governments, and non-governmental organizations have
developed numerous approaches to map and monitor biodiversity priorities and to report on status and trends...
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Improving Linkages Between Earth Observations and Ecosystem Service Models with Essential Biodiversity Variables

Principal Investigator

Gretchen Daily

Biodiversity dynamics underpin the regulation and provisioning of many ES, but ES models used commonly in decision-support tools do not adequately represent the relationships between different levels biodiversity (genes, species, ecosystems) and ES. Most ES tools use land-use/land cover (LULC) as the sole input representing...
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Using earth observations and ecosystem modeling to improve the sustainability of agribusiness and extractive industries in working landscapes

Principal Investigator

Gretchen Daily

Managing and monitoring biodiversity is a major challenge and opportunity for business, especially in rangelands, as one of the most heavily managed and often degraded natural systems that provides significant resources and raw materials for production. One of the largest and most threatened grasslands in...
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Mapping the Missing Millions: Developing a Global Database of Informal Settlement Location, Schema, and SDGs Indicators using Crowdsourced Data, Machine Learning, and Multi-sensor Satellite Imagery

Principal Investigator

Jamon Van Den Hoek

Proposed action: We propose a three year program of applied research to develop open, global-scale geospatial data to locate, characterize, and assess Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators at informal settlements belonging to refugees, internally displaced populations, and forcibly displaced and resettled people: the “missing millions.”...
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Source-differentiated air quality system to safeguard the respiratory health of US military personnel deployed in Southwest Asia, Djibouti, and Afghanistan

Principal Investigator

Meredith Franklin

Numerous epidemiological studies have convincingly demonstrated that exposure to airborne particulate matter (PM) poses a major risk to human health. Southwest Asia, Djibouti and Afghanistan (SADA) are particularly impacted by poor air quality due to several unique phenomenon that result in increased PM concentrations including...
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Improving Malaria Decision Support with Earth Observations

Principal Investigator

John Beck

Researchers at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) propose to improve malaria control decision making in sub-Saharan Africa by developing and deploying a technology for...

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Preparing Key State and Local Health and Air Quality Agencies for Upcoming Earth Observations

Principal Investigator

Yang Liu

Satellite remote sensing of atmospheric composition is becoming an increasingly important source of information in air quality management and public health surveillance. Current instruments such as MODIS, MISR, OMI, and VIIRS have provided valuable enhancements to numerous decision support activities at the local to global...
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Satellite-aided regional dust forecasting for Valley fever surveillance, highway accident prevention, and air quality management in the SW United States

Principal Investigator

Daniel Tong

Climate models have consistently projected a drying trend in the southwestern United States, aiding speculation of increasing dust storms in this region. Newly reconstructed long-term dust climatology reveals direct evidence of rapid intensification of dust storm activity over American deserts in the past decades, in...
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Using CrIS Ammonia Observations To Improve Decision Making on PM2.5 Control Policies

Principal Investigator

Matthew Alvarado

Using remote sensing and Earth system models to improve air quality and public health in megacities

The primary goal of this project is to use NASA retrievals of boundary-layer concentrations of ammonia (NH3) from the Crosstrack Infrared Spectrometer (CrIS) aboard the Suomi National...

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Using remote sensing and Earth system models to improve air quality and public health in megacities

Principal Investigator

Susan Anenberg

Using remote sensing and Earth system models to improve air quality and public health in megacities. 

Background: Ambient air pollution in cities is of growing concern as urbanization and economic development continue, yet many cities lack information on exposure levels and local health impacts, both...

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Completed Projects

Interested in our completed projects? View our project archive.

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