Rock, Barrett N.
University of New Hampshire, Complex Systems Research Center, Durham, New Hampshire

Abstract: Assessing the Environmental Disaster in Central Europe: The Use of Remote Sensing as an Environmental Monitoring Tool

The use of multispectral data acquired from the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) has been shown to be a highly effective way to detect, map, and monitor changes in forest health related to exposure to poor air quality. The presentation will focus on remotely sensed TM data sets that document changes in spruce/fir forests in the Appalachian Mountains of the northeastern United States (North Carolina, Virginia, New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire) and the even more dramatic collapse of similar ecosystems in the Black Triangle of Eastern Europe (the former German Democratic Republic, Czech Republic and Poland). Details of the diagnostic spectral connections between ground-based reflectance properties of forest canopies and similar spectral properties that can be monitored from orbit (TM) will be presented. The larger scale issues of regional air quality and global climate change (with a focus on recent El Niño events) will be addressed, as will newly discovered evidence for recovery of heavily damaged forest stands in the Czech Republic following recent political changes. Questions from the audience will be solicited, and an active exchange of ideas and concerns will be encouraged.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90929©1998-1999 AAPG Distinguished Lecturers