UC GIS Week

Monitoring Special Status Species on the Merced Vernal Pools Grasslands Reserve

The Spatial Analysis and Research Center (SpARC) has worked closely with the campus planning department in maintaining GIS layers and have developed an Esri ArcGIS Collector App which is used to survey and monitor special status species. The Merced Vernal Pool Grasslands Reserve lands are also environmental mitigation lands and are subject to federal and state permit conditions and regulations. A GIS database is maintained to help track research activities and for environmental compliance.

Daily imaging for Earth science with the Planet CubeSat constellation

Through our Education and Research program, Planet has more than 5,000 users studying a wide variety of disciplines, including climate change in the cryosphere, terrestrial ecosystems and vegetation dynamics, wildlife biology, threats to coral reefs and other marine habitats, agricultural productivity, and disaster response and humanitarian assistance. We will discuss the scientific and educational value of Planet’s persistent monitoring capability.

Spatial and temporal changes of soil-crop-environment relationship

Agricultural soils are notoriously spatially heterogeneous and many soil properties (e.g., water content) are temporally variable, making soil a complex media. This talk will feature research on the use of field measurements, near ground and remote sensing, and spatiotemporal data analysis for understanding soil-crop-water interactions and managing agricultural input site-specifically.