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Planning Underway for 2020 Mexico and Central America Lidar Campaign March 11, 2020 NCALM Prepares for Mapping in Mexico & Central America The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping is eager to begin the second international small-project campaign. There is... |
 NCALM Prepares for Mapping in Mexico & Central America The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping is eager to begin the second international small-project campaign. There is continued enthusiasm for research-grade lidar data. Last year’s success demonstrated that the cost-sharing method is feasible in the region. Planning for the 2020 Mexico and Central America Lidar Collection Campaign for Small- and Medium-Sized Projects is ongoing. There are 10 committed projects in Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. NCALM has export licenses and carnets in place. The Center is working with PIs to acquire the necessary permits for each location. The University of Houston has restricted international travel during March due to COVID-19 concerns, so it is anticipated that mapping may begin in April subject to the evolution of the pandemic and control measures being taken in the region. Principal Investigators can expect updates through email as project coordination continues. Related News Stories: ncalm.cive.uh.edu/news/small-projects-mapped-through-community-resource-pooling www.uh.edu/president/communications/communicae/20200309-covid-19-update-faculty-staff |
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NCALM Announces 2019 Seed Proposal Winners March 10, 2020 2019 Student Seed Proposal Winners Selected The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping surveys multiple projects each year for graduate student PIs whose research would be enhanced by... |
 2019 Student Seed Proposal Winners Selected The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping surveys multiple projects each year for graduate student PIs whose research would be enhanced by airborne lidar data. Students write and submit a two- to three-page proposal to be considered for an award (ncalm.cive.uh.edu/seed/about). The applications are reviewed by the NCALM Steering Committee, who select winners based on intellectual merit and broader impact. NCALM would like to announce that the 2019 seed proposal winners have been awarded. Eight projects were selected to receive lidar data this year. Congratulations to the following students and their advisors: Kaili Brande (Frank Davis) University of California, Santa Barbara3D fuel structure and plant community composition in relation to prescribed fire at the University of California Sedgwick Reserve Louis Graup (Naomi Tague) University of California, Santa BarbaraPreserving mountains as 'water towers' through forest management Brooke Hunter (Joshua Roering) University of OregonDouglas Fire, Oregon – Post-fire debris flow detection and erosion under private and public land management Cassie Lumbrazo (Jessica Lundquist) University of WashingtonUsing LiDAR to evaluate the hydrologic effects of forest restoration in Washington State’s eastern Cascade Mountains Emma Menio (Jackson Cothren) University of ArkansasFans of rock and roll: Sediment transport legacy on an Arctic alluvial fan Justin Nghiem (Michael Lamb) (California Institute of Technology)Understanding modern coastal sediment accretion rates and spatial patterns in the Wax Lake Delta, LA Collin Roland (Lucas Zoet) University of Wisconsin–MadisonLake Michigan coastal erosion: Measuring geomorphic response to extremely high lake levels Corey Scheip (Karl Wegmann) North Carolina State UniversityUtilization of airborne lidar to evaluate regional landslide area-volume scaling relationships after a large rainfall-triggered mass wasting event in western North Carolina |
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Call for Expressions of Interest in Alaskan Airborne Lidar Campaign January 8, 2020 Alaska Airborne Lidar Collection Campaign for Small- and Medium-Sized Projects The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping is announcing a call for expressions of interest from... |
 Alaska Airborne Lidar Collection Campaign for Small- and Medium-Sized Projects The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping is announcing a call for expressions of interest from researchers with small- to medium-sized projects and budgets in Alaska for late Summer 2020 (August–September). NCALM has received numerous inquiries from researchers with small projects in Alaska over the years. The size of these projects and their associated budgets make them economically and practically unfeasible. However, it is possible to survey small projects, and bring large benefits to the broader community, if several small projects are grouped together and the mobilization costs are distributed. Project mobilization is also aided by larger projects funded by other sources. NCALM has initially received expressions of interest for flights near Anchorage, AK. We are looking for additional projects to complement these sites. The smallest individual project budget that will be considered is $10,000. Exact coverage will be determined based on collection density, distance to airports, neighboring projects, and other factors. Send a short description of your project, potential budget, and KMZ of your study area if you have interest in participating in a community collection campaign. Projects must be research focused and can include, but are not limited to, glaciology, geology, hydrology, and seismology. Please contact us for more information about the campaign and forward this announcement to other researchers that may have an interest in such data collection. The more projects that are organized together, the larger the areas that can be collected for individual projects. NCALM plans to perform data collection in August and September of 2020. Contact NCALM at ncalm [at] egr.uh.edu for more information. Notes:
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NCALM at 2019 AGU Fall Meeting December 4, 2019 National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping/Geosensing Systems Engineering & Sciences Presentations and Posters at 2019 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting NCALM will be at the 2019... |
 National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping/Geosensing Systems Engineering & Sciences Presentations and Posters at 2019 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting NCALM will be at the 2019 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting on Monday, December 9–Friday, December 13. Faculty, staff, and students will be available at Booth 311, shared with OpenTopograhpy, on "NSF Street." Presentations: Xinxiang Zhu, Craig Glennie, and Benjamin Brooks – NH14A-05: Automated Change Detection using Cylindrical Primitives Generated from a Deep Neural Network Monday, December 9, 2019, 17:00–17:15 Moscone West – 2016, L2 Preston Hartzell and Craig Glennie – NH14A-08: Rigorous Error Propagation for Topographic Displacements Derived from Image Correlation Monday, December 9, 2019, 17:45–18:00 Moscone West – 2016, L2 Posters: M. Camille Barlow, Craig Glennie, Jennifer Telling, and Andrew Fountain – C31A-1480: Spatial Variability of Lateral Stream Channel Migration Over a Valley-Wide Scale: Taylor Valley, Antarctica Wednesday, December 11, 2019, 8:00–12:20 Moscone South – Poster Hall Andrea Albright and Craig Glennie – C31C-1545: Investigation of ICESat-2 and Landsat/Sentinel-2 Imagery Fusion for Retrieval of Nearshore Bathymetry Wednesday, December 11, 2019, 8:00–12:20 Moscone South – Poster Hall Kenneth Hudnut, Benjamin Brooks, Katherine Scharer, Janis Hernandez, Timothy Dawson, Michael Oskin, Ramon Arrowsmith, Kelly Ruth Blake, Stephan Bork, Matthew Boggs, Craig Glennie, Juan Carlos Fernandez-Diaz, Abhinav Singhania, and Darren Hauser – S31F-0466: Airborne Lidar and Electro-Optical Imagery Along Surface Ruptures of the 2019 Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence, Southern California Wednesday, December 11, 2019, 8:00–12:20 Moscone South – Poster Hall |
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Three new NCALM datasets released from California and Mexico November 14, 2019 OpenTopography is pleased to announce the release of three new datasets covering areas of California, and Mexico. Two of the three datasets were collected as part of NCALM's seed grant... |
 OpenTopography is pleased to announce the release of three new datasets covering areas of California, and Mexico. Two of the three datasets were collected as part of NCALM's seed grant program... Continue reading at OpenTopography. |
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A Collaboration of Satellites and Villages November 5, 2019 UH Professor Continues Work With NASA and Mekong River Stakeholders To Address Flooding and Other Critical Issues Hyongki Lee, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at... |
 UH Professor Continues Work With NASA and Mekong River Stakeholders To Address Flooding and Other Critical Issues Hyongki Lee, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the UH Cullen College of Engineering, has a lot of experience using data collected by Earth-observing technologies (such as satellites) for solving water management issues on Earth. With his latest grant, Lee is diving deeper into addressing critical concerns such as land subsidence, flood forecasting and groundwater management in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia. Principal investigator Lee and his co-investigator Faisal Hossain of the University of Washington recently won their second NASA SERVIR program grant. The three-year project, titled "Operational Services for water, disaster and hydropower applications for lower Mekong populations using NASA earth observations and models," received $661,443 in funding... Continue reading at www.egr.uh.edu. |
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Donghwan Kim Defends Ph.D. Dissertation November 4, 2019 River Discharge Estimates Improved Using Ensemble Learning Ph.D. candidate Donghwan Kim successfully defended his dissertation titled, "Ensemble Learning Regression for Estimating River... |
 River Discharge Estimates Improved Using Ensemble Learning Ph.D. candidate Donghwan Kim successfully defended his dissertation titled, "Ensemble Learning Regression for Estimating River Discharge Using Remotely Sensed Data and Hydrological Model." A new approach to estimating river discharge using ensemble learning regression (ELQ) was developed. Ensemble learning designates a series of procedures to train several functions and combine their results based on an integrating rule. ELQ generates more accurate estimates of river discharge compared to those obtained from traditional empirical methods. Efforts were also made to improve the accuracy of estimates of discharge for poorly gauged rivers using remotely sensed data, hydrologic models, and ELQ. Donghwan's Geosensing Systems Engineering & Sciences (GSES) advisor was Dr. Hyongki Lee. Congratulations, Donghwan! Related News Stories: ncalm.cive.uh.edu/news/zhiyue-sun-defends-phd-dissertation ncalm.cive.uh.edu/news/ekhtari-defends-phd-dissertation |
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NCALM Announces 2020 Mexico and Central America Airborne Lidar Collection Campaign November 4, 2019 Mexico and Central America Airborne Lidar Collection Campaign for Small- and Medium-Sized Projects The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping is announcing a call for expressions of... |
 Mexico and Central America Airborne Lidar Collection Campaign for Small- and Medium-Sized Projects The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping is announcing a call for expressions of interest from researchers with small- to medium-sized projects and budgets in Mexico and Central America for Spring 2020 (March–April). NCALM has received numerous inquiries from researchers with small projects in Mexico and Central America over the years. The size of these projects and their associated budgets make them economically and practically unfeasible. It is possible to survey small projects, and bring large benefits to the broader community, if several small projects within a country or region are grouped together and the mobilization costs are distributed. Project mobilization is also aided by larger projects funded by other sources. NCALM mapped seven small archaeological projects last year for the 2019 Mexico and Central America Lidar Collection Campaign. The work included projects in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and El Salvador. NCALM has initially received expressions of interest for areas in Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. We are looking for additional projects to complement these sites. The smallest individual project budget that will be considered is $15,000. Exact coverage will be determined based on collection density, distance to airports, neighboring projects, and other factors. Send a short description of your project, potential budget, and KMZ of your area of interest if you have interest in participating in a community collection campaign. Projects must be research focused and can include, but are not limited to, archaeology, geology, hydrology, seismology, and ecology. Please contact us for more information about the campaign and forward this announcement to other researchers that may have an interest in such data collection. The more projects that are organized together, the larger the areas that can be collected for individual projects. NCALM will start data collection in March–April 2020. We will begin requesting permits to fly and collect data for the respective countries in January 2020. Contact NCALM at ncalm [at] egr.uh.edu (subject: 2020%20MXCA%20Lidar%20Collection%20Campaign) for more information. Notes:
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Geosensing Systems Engineering Seeks Postdoctoral Scholar October 9, 2019 Postdoctoral Scholar Opening A postdoctoral position is available with the Geosensing Systems Engineering & Sciences program in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering... |
 Postdoctoral Scholar Opening A postdoctoral position is available with the Geosensing Systems Engineering & Sciences program in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Houston. The candidate will conduct research on quantifying 3D geospatial change between multi-temporal remote sensing data, including investigating new change detection approaches for point and raster data, applying rigorous uncertainty estimation, and developing new algorithms for adaptive and multiscale change detection methods. A Ph.D. in geomatics, geodetic science, remote sensing, computer vision or science, or related discipline is preferred. Experience with Python or MATLAB is required; experience with C++ is desirable. The successful applicant will be a part of a team of faculty members, research scientists, and graduate students focused on understanding our changing world through remote sensing observations. The program maintains a state-of-the-art facility and is associated with the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) funded by the NSF. Interested parties should contact clglennie [at] uh.edu with a copy of their current CV. |
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Geosensing Systems Engineering Faculty Receives $400K Grant from NGA October 7, 2019 Estimating the Uncertainty in Change-Detection Products will Advance the Geosciences Dr. Preston Hartzell received a $400,000 grant from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).... |
 Estimating the Uncertainty in Change-Detection Products will Advance the Geosciences Dr. Preston Hartzell received a $400,000 grant from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). The new grant provides funding for two years. Preston is a Research Assistant Professor in the Geosensing Systems Engineering & Sciences graduate program at the University of Houston. The NGA grant concentrates on developing rigorous methods for estimating the uncertainty in spatial change-detection products. Computing the vertical difference between pre- and post-event Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) to detect change is common, but producing a corresponding uncertainty estimate for each pixel of the difference model is rare. An analyst can observe vertical change but does not know if that change is significant under the current methods. Preston's work aims to change that. He and others will develop algorithms to first estimate uncertainty in the source DEMs, followed by algorithms to push that source uncertainty into the final change detection product. They will also develop methods for estimating the uncertainty in horizontal motion derived from pre- and post-event point clouds and DEMs. This research will support scientists in properly interpreting and using spatial change-detection products by providing rigorously-derived uncertainty estimates for each reported change measurement. Uncertainty estimation is fundamental to all measurement. Interpretation of a measurement requires familiarity with the complete measurement process in order to develop a sense of its reliability, given no associated uncertainty. "In terms of change detection, this is often overlooked when viewing a large change over a large area. But when examining small changes, such as horizontal motion due to post-seismic fault creep or a small, isolated area of vertical difference between two digital elevation models, an analyst should naturally question whether the reported spatial change is valid or simply a product of the data collection or processing methods," Preston states. "These small changes can be important, e.g., for earthquake inversion modeling or target detection." Related News Stories: www.egr.uh.edu/news/uh-engineers-test-biodegradable-self-guided-reconnaissance-devices www.egr.uh.edu/news/uh-student-earns-top-national-defense-science-and-engineering-fellowship |
