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.

 

Analysis of Agricultural Water Supply-Demand Imbalance During the Unprecedented California Drought Using NASA Satellite Data

Principal Investigator

Noah Molotch

The overarching goal of the project is to characterize anomalies in water supply and demand using a combination of NASA satellite observations and NASA physically based land surface models. The annual water supply-demand imbalance is ingested into existing California Department of Water Resources (CA...

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MAD-WRF: A Solar Irradiance Nowcasting System to Support the GEO-VENER Element

Principal Investigator

Pedro Jimenez Munoz

A GEO Vision for Energy (GEO-VENER) goal includes “the availability and long-term acquisition of data from satellite and in-situ instruments and models to make possible the effective deployment, operation and maintenance of renewable energy systems and their integration in the grid”. The challenge in renewable...
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Maximizing Utility of Remote Sensing Data for Water Quality Monitoring and Resources Management in Californias Water Systems

Principal Investigator

Christine Lee

Water quality is a critical element of freshwater supply, particularly in times and areas of drought, in part due to less dilution of point contaminant sources. Limited water resources can be further strained if water quality is not managed properly.While there are measures in place...

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Operational Remote Sensing of Agricultural Water Use in Cooperation with Western State Water Resource Agencies for Improved Water Management

Principal Investigator

Justin Huntington

Project description: Reporting of evapotranspiration (ET) from irrigated agriculture in the western U.S. is increasingly being required for surface and groundwater-use inventories, estimating historical pumpage, as well as supporting water rights, transfers, and management. Crop conditions vary significantly in time and space due to crop...

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United States Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service

Principal Investigator

William Kustas

End Users / Partners: E&J Gallo Winery, National Grape & Wine Initiative, Almond Board of California.

 

Project Description: The proposed project will refine and apply a multi-scale remote sensing toolkit for mapping crop water use and crop stress for improved irrigation scheduling and water...

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An AmeriGEOSS Cloud-based Platform for Rapid Deployment of GEOGLOWS Water and Food Security Nexus Decision Support Apps

Principal Investigator

Daniel Ames

GEOGLOWS seeks to enable earth scientists to solve the challenges associated with achieving Global Water Sustainability. Providing ample clean water is also an element of
the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and is cross-cutting with other elements including food security, climate, health, energy, and life below...
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Evaluation of Risk and Capacity Development for Two Indian River Basins

Principal Investigator

Venkat Lakshmi

Water resources in developing countries are under a constant state of stress. There are pressures of a growing population and diverse needs – agricultural, industrial, personal uses and power generation. This is coupled with degradation of water quality due to industrial waste and agricultural surface...
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Integrating Global Remote Sensing and Modeling Systems for Local Flood Prediction and Impact Assessment

Principal Investigator

Robert Brakenridge

In 2008, Myanmar/Burma suffered 138,000 fatalities from tropical storm Nargis. Approximately 260,000 people were made homeless; an estimated 90–95% of the buildings in the delta were lost. One cause of the Nargis catastrophe was the lack of communication of the storm warning directly to the...
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Development of a Global Evaporative Stress Index Based on Thermal and Microwave LST towards Improved Monitoring of Agricultural Drought

Principal Investigator

Christopher Hain

Project description: We propose to develop a global agricultural monitoring tool, with a focus on providing early warning of developing vegetation stress at relatively high spatial resolution (5-km) for agricultural decision makers and stakeholders. This tool is based on remotely sensed estimates of evapotranspiration retrieved...

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Africa Food Security & Agriculture

Principal Investigator

Madison Bradley

Human-wildlife conflict is increasingly more common due to human population growth, habitat fragmentation, and changing climatic conditions. This conflict is particularly evident in the Kavango-Zambezi area, where over three million people share the landscape with an abundant megafauna population. As the changing climate continues to...
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Completed Projects

Interested in our completed projects? View our project archive.

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