1. Landsat Imagery & Analysis Grassland Ecosystems and Societal Adaptations under Changing Grazing Intensity and Climate on the Mongolian Plateau

2. Agenda • Overview of research & publications goals • Image availability in relation to field sites • Planning for next summer’s field season • Image selection considerations • Preprocessing and Classification • Preparation of field plan • Hyperion • Back end computing issues

3. Overview of research & publications goals • Strategy – envision outcomes and plan backward to achieve • Feasible Research Publication • Land Cover Change over time from Landsat image archive • Compare patterns and change between • Inner Mongolia vs Mongolia • Climatological gradients (E-W, N-S) of grassland ecosystem types • Differences between C3 vs C4 photosynthetic pathway PFGs? • Agricultural Extensification vs Pasture ratio • Encroachment of deserts and evidence of land degradation • Use of County-level Herd Density data? • Comparison of AVHRR/MODIS to Landsat • Flows in part from above paper – what are the tradeoffs between coarse spatial/high temporal vs improved spatial/low temporal imagery? • Are there any significant implications for C-sequestration modeling emanating from these (hypothesized) differences? • Comparisons of Landsat vs Hyperion – similar approach to above, but emphasizing comparisons between multispectral vs hyperspectral • Does the addition of hyperspectral capability have a significant impact on the ability to map plant groups? Desertification? Other relevant phenomena? • Perhaps some algorithm-development paper? (Dr. Sha?)

4. Image availability in relation to field sites • Nina has compiled a detailed spreadsheet and screen captures listing/portraying available and useful images • There appears to be ample opportunity to exploit multi-temporal imagery • We will compile both inter-annual and intra-annual image sets, if possible • Need to identify the 3 detailed study areas to focus what images to download, plus where to task Hyperion

5. Planning for next summer’s field season • Identification of 3 detailed field sites • Permissions for GPS, ASD, etc • Logistics • Preparation of classification scheme • Preliminary classifications • Planning for field season to coincide with Hyperion and Landsat ground truth collection • Coordination of RS, Social, Ecological field activities

6. Image selection considerations • Location vs 3 field sites • Timing within seasons and across years • Cloud cover and other image quality issues • Amount of time required for processing – we can only do so much, so we want to select carefully

7. Preprocessing and Classification • Once obtained, reproject into the common datum, projection and coordinate system • Check for errors; fix if possible • Clip to study areas • ISODATA and other prelim classification strategies • Develop and vett classification scheme • Output for field work

8. Preparation of field plan • Timing and logistics • Coordination with Social, Ecological • Personnel • Transportation and insurance of instruments (GPS, ASD, etc) • Field sampling design • Field data forms • Other…?

9. Hyperion • Need to determine detailed field locations • 3 village clusters where Social survey will occur • Ecological field sites? • In the process of setting up tasking of sensor • Multi-season (ie, do we collect 2 years in a row?) • Supporting data considerations? • Meteorological data for ATCOR? • Other…?

10. Back end computing issues • Need to set up a server • Very large volumes of data • Speed of processing and I/O • Backup of database and workflow • Workstations • Software • ERDAS Objective and Hyperspectral, plus standard toolkit • Trimble GPS management and post processing • ASD Spectroradiometer data processing and management