California Integrated Remote Sensing Infrastructure

(CIRSI)

Proposed Core Research Initiative for the

2002-2003 UC Regents Budget

Participating Programs, Campuses, Laboratories:

Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics

University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Davis

University of California, Irvine

University of California, Merced

University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Riverside

University of California, Santa Barbara

University of California, Santa Cruz

University of California, San Diego

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Other (non-UC) participants:

San Diego State University

San Francisco State University

San Jose State University

California State University Monterey Bay

Stanford University

University of Southern California

California Institute of Technology

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

Moss Landing Marine Laboratory (SJCSU)

NASA Ames Research Center

SeaSpace, Inc.

Submitted in parallel by each proposing Program

January 15, 2001

Participating University of California Programs at the UCOP MRIF workshop

UCSC, November 29-30, 2001

(attendance by invitation only)*

† Significant workshop presenter / proposal contributor

* CIRSI Steering Committee members

IGPP: *Bernard Minster (UCSD),

*Thorne Lay (UCSC),

†Chick Keller (LANL),

†Steven Park (UCR)

UC Berkeley: *Inez Fung

UC Davis: *Charlene Sailer

UC Irvine: *Charlie Zender

UC Los Angeles: *Gilles Peltzer, †Larry Smith

UC Riverside: *Thomas Perring

UC San Diego: *Dave Sandwell

UC Santa Barbara: *Dar Roberts, †Jim Frew,

UC Santa Cruz: *Eli Silver, †Raphael Kudela

UC Merced: *Craig Schultz

Los Alamos National Laboratory: *Howard Hanson

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: *Ernest Majer

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: *William Walter

Other (non-UC) participating institutions / institutional representatives:

San Diego State University †Rob Mellors

San Jose State University

San Francisco State University †Trish Foschi

California State University Monterey Bay †Daniel Fernandez, †U Win

Stanford University

University of Southern California

Caltech

Jet Propulsion Laboratory †Ronald Blum, †Yi Chao

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute- †Marcia McNutt

Moss Landing Marine Laboratory (SJCSU) †Richard Zimmerman

SeaSpace, Inc. Buzz Bernstein

Cover: Remote Sensing involves of a broad set of technologies that use ground-based, airborne, and space-borne platforms. Primary techniques comprise multi-spectral and hyper-spectral sensors(from UV to IR, to microwave), active sensors such as radar —including airborne and satellite synthetic aperture Radar—and lidar—including both imaging laser altimeters and backscattering lidars. But the panoply of technologies also include properly underwater imaging (e.g. sonar) and other remote measurements. In recent years, a considerable premium has been placed on near-real time applications, which introduces a critical new dimension in terms of interpretation of the observations and in terms of response to detected changes.

California Integrated Remote Sensing Infrastructure (CIRSI)

UCB, UCD, UCI, UCLA, UCM, UCR, UCSB, UCSC, UCSD, LLNL, LBNL, LANL, and IGPP

Background and Motivation: The continued prosperity of California is intimately wedded to the State's critical environmental systems, including its coastal waters, agricultural regions, surface water distribution system, atmospheric and climate systems, and active crustal fault system along a major tectonic plate boundary. The University of California is actively engaged in research in all of these arenas, and it is now well recognized that the complexity of understanding and predicting the future for such complex systems requires synoptic, repeated measurements over extensive regions, not just the traditional spot samples that have been available to most researchers. A technological revolution has taken place in the last quarter of the 20th century, allowing diverse characteristics of the environmental system (air and sea temperatures, wind velocities, ocean current directions, crustal surface motions, air and water quality, etc.) to be imaged as continuous fields with high spatial and temporal resolution by airborne and spaceborne ('remote') platforms. Passive imaging is complemented by "active" techniques such as radar and lidar, used to probe specific locations in detail, and by "ground truth" measurements. Collectively, these technologies are known as Remote Sensing. Their uses have progressively expanded to include domains as diverse as environmental monitoring and management, agribusiness and urban planning, oceanography and marine biology, atmospheric science and climate, geophysical and geological studies, natural hazards (earthquakes, volcanoes, floods), exploration for natural resources and military surveillance. Effective use of these data requires advanced image processing, visualization, and geographical information systems (GIS), to deal with three-dimensional, time-dependent information. Progress in electrical and computer engineering leads to constant improvements in sensors, data collection, and data flow. In most instances, complete time series are acquired and analyzed in order to capture and understand the evolution of the Earth systems on seasonal to decadal time scales. Processing the vast data volumes involved calls for data "mining" techniques, and raises daunting challenges. The many disciplinary users of remote sensing often lack facilities, software, and communications to exploit these resulting databases effectively for the benefit of the State.

Needs identified at UCSC workshop: At a UC-sponsored ("MRIF") workshop held at UCSC Nov. 29-30, 2000, it became evident that an enormous amount of work in remote sensing is conducted in California, at UC and SU campuses, at other academic institutions, as well as in the private sector. Many problems critical to the State’s economy benefit from this technology. Considerable volumes of remote sensing data are collected routinely over California and its coastal waters. Data sources range from the veteran spacecraft GOES and AVHRR, to the most current TERRA and LANDSAT platforms, the European ERS1/2 and Canadian RADARSAT. Numerous additional US and foreign spacecraft (e.g. AQUA, AURA, ICESat, ALOS, ENVISAT) will be launched over the next few years. (Several missions with a California focus are planned by UC researchers, notably through CalSpace.) Further, commercial data collection, from space and from aircraft is a fast growing industry which California should attract, capture and retain.

Major issues include: (1) The substantial time and effort still required to assemble complete, calibrated large data sets, and the high cost attached to large commercial data sets; (2) the disparity of software and hardware tools needed to analyze and visualize the data, and (3) the lack of a convenient and reliable system for the systematic dissemination of data sets and tools. These two aspects are an impediment to the development of novel analysis techniques and tend to perpetuate current discrepancies between a few well equipped laboratories and others ("haves" vs. "have nots"). The net result is a significant under-usage of remote sensing data by educators, researchers, and professionals, and a lack of interoperability of processing systems. Yet California enjoys some of the best infrastructure on which to build the next generation of data collection, management and dissemination: large computing facilities equipped with Petabyte-class mass storage; high bandwidth networking connecting most institutions of higher learning; a strong academic and commercial base for data collection (e.g. satellite downlinks, airborne techniques), processing (e.g. GIS) and visualization; and an unmatched talent pool capable of developing better hardware and software. We can build on this, and on existing campus-based programs (e.g. UCSB) to promote a major increase in capability and actual usage of remote sensing data. No single program can fully exploit even existing data sets, so that all are in need of substantial augmentation. It is essential that UC use its state-wide presence and talent to do this in a cost-effective manner, by creating a climate of state-wide cooperation and implementing the infrastructure to promote active collaborations.

The recent workshop dramatically demonstrated that remote sensing technologies are revolutionizing many research areas addressing California's environmental systems, and it is clear that these synoptic approaches are rapidly increasing, becoming critical for all areas of future research on the State's complex environments. UC can optimally position itself for leadership and impact in such applications by developing an infrastructure that facilitates access to and utilization of the rapidly diversifying types of remote sensing data. This investment would service all UC research programs, but also other users of remote sensing data in the State. We have concluded that for California to become the uncontested world leader in remote sensing applications, we need

We therefore propose a UC-led California Integrated Remote Sensing Infrastructure Project (CIRSI) capitalizing on existing activities and infrastructure, to provide resources for remote sensing of California, for California, by Californians. Participation in this project will include all UC campuses and be coordinated by IGPP. Other participants include DOE National Laboratories, several SU campuses, and private institutions. CIRSI will focus on California data, with the goal of making these data available to all parties, under the principle of "free and open exchange" of scientific data. Targets we have identified deal with virtually every social, political and economic aspect of California. They include agricultural lands (including pest-threatened areas), urban development, seismic, volcanic and landslide areas, wildfire fuel assessment, flood zones mapping, waterways and water resources—including snowpack—, coastlines and EEZ productivity, air quality and pollution forecasting, etc. Underwater real-time remote sensing data collected by oceanographic institutions (e.g. MBARI, Scripps) contribute critical information on the status and health of California offshore environments. As such, remote sensing has a direct impact on a huge fraction of the State’s population and economy, including in particular segments which are subject to potentially enormous economic risk.

Proposed CIRSI Project: The proposed CIRSI program comprises the following elements:

  1. Establishment of a centralized infrastructure, incorporating a large persistent Internet-accessible database, a repository of public-domain software, and a means of collecting remote sensing data from free spacecraft broadcasts. (to be matched by additional Federal support proposals)

  2. Creation and deployment of distributed infrastructure components (hardware, software, communications, user support staff) aimed at enhancing research and education facilities on all UC campuses. This will support Statewide access over high bandwidth connections to a network-transparent digital library of remotely sensed data. This can be used at matching funds for campus proposals seeking extramural support.

  3. Remote Sensing Science Fellowships (GSR, PGR, Visitor Exchange) aimed at promoting intercampus exchanges of ideas, tools, and personnel. Selected recipients might spend an internship at a non-UC campus, a DOE National Laboratory, or an institution offering special capabilities, such as JPL or MBARI. Some fellowships would be granted for development and sharing of curriculum components, for the production of Web-based educational tools, and for the development of distance learning modules.

  4. Competitive Research Grants aimed at promoting intercampus, and campus-laboratory collaborative research, including both applications of remote sensing data, and tool development efforts. We anticipate that such research will be leveraged into new research proposals for Federal funding (NASA, NSF, USGS, NOAA, DOE, DoD).

  5. Education and Training: UC can offer exceptional graduate and undergraduate education at all campuses, and many campuses can already offer first-class education in remote sensing. To keep pace with the exponential growth of this field, we need to invest in computing, storage, and visualization resources. At the same time, continued progress in data acquisition systems, instrumentation design and construction, and communications will require dynamic adaptation of this education function. A major purpose of CIRSI will be to establish effective liaisons, at the researcher and student level, between the users of remote sensing data (Earth and environment, natural resources and agriculture, etc) and the developers of advanced technologies (engineering schools, wireless communications, computer science).

  6. Outreach Activities to K-12 students and teachers, community colleges, to Federal and State Governments agencies, City and County Governments, to industry (technology transfer, training, short courses, University extension), and to the Public (maps, digital libraries, WWW sites.)

  7. CIRSI management will be done through a Steering Committee with representation of all campuses, and at large members representing the interests of non-UC participants. Day-to-day management will be done through the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP), a Multi-campus Research Unit. This will include organization of a CIRSI annual meeting, occasional topical workshops, and regular meetings and teleconferences of the CIRSI Steering Committee..

Deliverables: The CIRSI deliverables will include (1) remote sensing databases of California, freely exchanged at the marginal cost of data reproduction —which is essentially nil for online data— (2) software tools for managing distributed databases (3) interoperable software tools for co-processing different data sets —initially simply acquired and locally maintained, but sometimes developed for the specific CIRSI applications— (4) educational tools and curricula to increase student literacy and qualifications in remote sensing, and (5) a growing workforce of researchers and professionals, well trained in accessing and using remotely sensed data.

Management and budget: As indicated, in order to reduce the need for a new administrative structure and to achieve an effective, low cost organization, we propose to rely on an existing University organization: the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) a multicampus research unit of the University of California. IGPP has branches at four campuses (UCLA, UCR, UCSD, UCSC) and two National Laboratories (LANL, LLNL), and new branches are being proposed. IGPP has close relationships with other major collaborative institutions in California, such as the Southern California Earthquake Center, a major consumer of remote sensing data. The CIRSI Steering Committee (with input from thematic subcommittees) will coordinate resource allocations which will evolve dynamically as the infrastructure is deployed and the tools are built. Specific objectives will be assigned to work groups ("clusters") created as required for a finite time period, until the objective is met. Significant considerations will include the educational components of requests, and the leveraging of resources from other funding sources.

CIRSI Budget Request (Total Annual Permanent State Support Request of $5M/yr)

(1) UC-ACES Central Office Management/Staff Costs

200,000/yr

(2) Annual Meeting, Topical Workshops, Coordinating Committee Travel

150,000/yr

(3) Outreach Activities (educational and implementation interfaces to partnering programs)

500,000/yr

(4) Remote Sensing Science Fellowship Program (GSR, PGR, Visitor Exchange Program)

750,000/yr

(5) Centralized infrastructure (to be matched by additional Federal support proposals)

1,200,000/yr

(6) Distributed infrastructure (Hardware/Software/communications, usable as matching funds)

1,700,000/yr

(7) Competitive Research Grants in Disciplinary/Thematic Remote Sensing Science topics

500,000/yr

 

Program-specific strengths and CIRSI benefits: Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP)

The Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (http://igpp-sw.ucsd.edu) is a Multi-Campus Research Unit (MRU) of the University of California. Its fundamental mission is to promote and coordinate basic research on the understanding of the origin, structure, and evolution of the Earth, the Solar System, and the Universe, and on the prediction of future changes, as they affect human life. In order to accomplish its mission, IGPP pursues the following objectives:

• to promote excellence in basic research at UC campuses in the various disciplines of the Geosciences, with applications to the study of ancient life, the atmosphere and oceans, solid Earth, planetary systems and their space environment, and astrophysics.

• to foster the observational basis for research in the Geosciences through the development and use of spacecraft, aircraft, ships, laboratory facilities, and instruments networks on land and at sea

• to contribute to undergraduate, graduate, and public education utilizing available resources and facilities in cooperation with other units in the UC system

• to support existing research and service links between UC and regional and national facilities so as to aid researchers in large cooperative programs

• to encourage and support multidisciplinary applied research projects related to the several branches of the Geosciences by providing management facilities for ad hoc inter-institutional organizations

• to encourage and facilitate the use of National Laboratory facilities by the University of California faculty and to foster interaction between campus and laboratory scientists in cooperative ventures

Primary strengths that IGPP will bring to CIRSI include:

The MRU, through its branches—that is, through its faculty, researchers and students— is therefore in a uniquely strong position to promote the use of remote sensing technology in all areas of importance to the State of California. These areas include, in particular, atmospheric sciences (e.g. climatological impacts, local and transpacific tropospheric pollution), hydrology (water resources, floods, snow-pack) land cover and land use (e.g. agriculture, urban sprawl, forest fires, ecological stress, disease vectors), ocean sciences (e.g. coastal processes and erosion, ocean productivity, El Niño and other oscillations), natural hazards (e.g. earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, floods).

IGPP’s strategy for CIRSI derives directly from the conclusions of IGPP/UCSC MRIF workshop: (1) we will focus on making abundant, reliable, timely and high-quality data available not only to UC and Lab researchers, but to other California partners, including commercial concerns, (2) we will promote the development, dissemination and maintenance of convenient and effective tools to handle such data, and (3) we will promote and coordinate education and training of a California workforce in this field, starting with UC students, but extending to K-12 and to UC Extended Studies. In all these areas, we will make best use of the high-bandwidth communications available between UC campuses, Labs and other institutions of higher learning.

IGPP proposes to manage CIRSI. IGPP will establish a systemwide steering committee with broad disciplinary representation to establish detailed priorities, evaluate proposed activities through a peer-review process, implement a fair and equitable allocation of resources, and coordinate efforts toward securing extramural support as may be appropriate. IGPP will use its existing mechanisms to manage CIRSI resources, primarily through campus-to-campus transfers. IGPP will organize yearly symposia, as well as discipline-specific meetings as needed., and will report to UC (via the Office of Research) using the well-established mechanisms available to MRUs. Special attention will be given to Education and Outreach, for which specific structures already exist at most campuses, and for which successful recipes can be learned from non-UC partners as well.