Educational Component

The LCLUC Program is strengthened by the NASA Educational Program through its New Investigators Program (NIP) and the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF) (formerly the NASA Earth System Science Fellowship Program). The NIP in Earth Science was established in 1996 to encourage the integration of Earth system science research and education by scientists and engineers at the early stage of their professional careers. The program, designed for investigators in Earth system science and applications at academic institutions and non-profit organizations, emphasizes the early development of professional careers of these individuals as both researchers and educators. A number of new investigators have been supported in the area of land-cover and land-use change research.

The NESSF was started in 1990. The purpose of the program is to ensure continued training of interdisciplinary scientists to support the study of the Earth as a system. Over 700 Ph.D. and M.Sc. fellowships have been awarded since the inception of the program. The graduates from these fellowships constitute a growing network of scholars endeavored to promote Earth system science. In recent years a number of PhD and Graduate Fellowships have been awarded in the area of Land-Cover and Land-Use research.

In addition to the above programs, the LCLUC Program is further strengthened by the NASA/NSF GLOBE Program, a worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based education and science program.

Current NIP LCLUC-related Projects

2007

  • Jin, Yufang - University of California - Irvine. Fire-induced Changes in Albedo and the Associated Radiative Forcing: A Comparison of Boreal Canada and Australia Tropical Savannas
  • Kennedy, Robert - USDA Forest Service. Leveraging Temporal Variation In Climate And Management Across National Parks In The Western U.S. To Characterize Three Decades Of Landscape Vegetation Dynamics
  • Lobell, David - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Agricultural Applications Of Multi-Year Remote Sensing: A Research And Education Program
  • Mountrakis, Giorgos - State University of New York. Satellite-Derived Anthropogenic Land Use/Land Cover Changes: Integrating Detection, Modeling And Educational Approaches

2005

  • Manson, Steven - University of Minnesota. American Land Change: Integrated Research and Education on Decision Making in Coupled Human-Environment Systems
  • Nair, Udaysankar - University of Alabama - Huntsville. Investigation of microclimatic changes associated with tropical forest fragmentation using remote sensing and numerical modeling
  • Powers, Jennifer - University of Minnesota. A Regional-Scale Analysis of Regenerating Tropical Dry Forests in Costa Rica: Measurements and Models of the Linkages among Biodiversity, Ecosystem Function and Carbon Storage
  • Song, Conghe - University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Impacts of Land-Cover/Land-Use Change on Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Budget

Current NESSF LCLUC-related Projects

2007

  • Bolch, Michael - Duke University. Evaluating the Effects of Land-Surface Heterogeneity at Various Scales on Atmospheric Boundary Layer Processes
  • Dieye, Amadou - South Dakota State University. Land Cover Land Use Change and Soil Organic Carbon under Climate Variability in Semi-Arid to Sub-Humid West African Sahel (1975-2050)
  • Dubinin, Maxim - University of Wisconsin - Madison. Effects of Land Use Change on Fire, Vegetation and Wildlife Dynamics in Arid Grasslands of Southern Russia
  • Ellicott, Evan - University of Maryland - College Park. Estimating Global Biomass Burning Emissions Using Fire Radiative Power
  • Espirito-Santo, Fernando - University of New Hampshire. Natural Forest Disturbance and Carbon Cycling in the Brazilian Amazon: Remote Sensing Approaches at Local and Regional Scales
  • Gorsevski, Virginia - University of Maryland - College Park. Impacts of Conflict on Land Cover, Fire Dynamics, and Biodiversity Potential in the Imatong Mountains of Southern Sudan
  • Jiang, Xiaoyan - University of Texas - Austin. Using Satellite Observations and a Fully Coupled Land-Atmosphere-Chemistry Model to Study the Coupling between Vegetation and the Hydrologic Cycle Through Biogenic Emissions Pathways
  • Kane, Van - University of Washington. Spectral Mixture Analysis of ASTER Images to Estimate Forest Biomass and Habitat
  • Lindquist, Erik - South Dakota State University. Using MODIS and Landsat Data to Advance Regional, High-Spatial Resolution Change Monitoring for the Humid Tropical Forests of the Congo Basin

2006

  • Adeney, Jennifer - Duke University. Remote Sensing of Essential Drivers of White Sand Systems in the Brazilian Amazon Using Landsat and MODIS
  • Barnes, Christopher - South Dakota State University. United States Land Cover Land Use Change, Albedo and Radiative Forcing: Past and Potential Climate Implications
  • Christman, Zachary - Clark University. Disaggregating Phenological Variation from Discrete Land-Cover Change in the Rio Lerma-Chapala Watershed, Mexico
  • Dasgupta, Swarvanu - George Mason University. Multi-Sensor Approach for Monitoring Fire Risk in the Wildland Urban Interface
  • Eckmann, Ted - University of California - Santa Barbara. Validating Retrievals of Subpixel Fire Sizes and Temperatures from MODIS to Improve Understanding and Monitoring of Fires
  • Galford, Gillian - Brown University. Biogeochemical Consequences of Land-Use Transitions Along Brazil's Agricultural Frontier
  • Lipscomb, Monica - University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Urban Landscape Patterns: Impacts on Hydrologic Processes and Nitrogen Pollution
  • Loughner, Christopher - University of Maryland - College Park. How Do Changes to the Urban Environment Affect Precipitation and Air Quality?
  • White, Benjamin - University of Maryland - College Park. Conservation or Degradation: The Impact of Land Cover Change on the "Outstanding Universal Value" of World Heritage Sites

2005

  • McCarty, Jessica - University of Maryland - College Park. Seasonal and Inter-annual Variability of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Crop Residue Burning in the Contiguous United States
  • Morton, Douglas - University of Maryland - College Park. Savannization of a Tropical Forest Frontier: Carbon Consequences of Climate and Anthropogenic Fire from a Height-Structured Ecosystem Model
  • Powers, Amy - University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Error in Land-Cover Change Analyses: Identifying and Propagating Uncertainty for Ecological Monitoring and Modeling
  • Schroeder, Wilfrid - University of Maryland - College Park. Towards an Integrated System of Systems for Vegetation Fire Monitoring