Just a short “news” release, the 2009 vegetation map update for American Samoa (Tutuila, T’au, and Ofu-olosega) is about to complete!!
Great efforts by GIS specialist Neil Gurr and Dr. Mark Schmaedick (American Samoa Community College)!! This is the first time such a mapping project is conducted with very close cooperation with our island partners every single step of the way. They actually performed a majority of the task. Again, great work by Neil!
About the mapping method, it’s basically the same as we have been mapping the pacific island for the past 3 years but with a few tweaks. This time, however, we relied much more heavily on actual field visit. This was perhaps the biggest benefit having our island partner actively involved in the process. It not only should boost the accuracy of the map, but also helps our partner to better understand such data as well as to master the technology.
We will soon finalize the data package including metadata and make it available. We will also conduct a thorough review of the process, from which to direct our future island mapping projects in a better direction.
If you want to follow exactly how The Book runs through the Palau example analysis, download the data packet here.
Let’s get away from the boring “book” for a while and take a look at what imagery we have for the islands as of today. Here is an update.
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· Latest update
o Kosrae (FSM) Pan-sharpened Natural Color QuickBird; August 2008 from Tony Kimmet (NRCS)
o Kosrae (FSM) Pan-sharpened Color-Infrared QuickBird; August 2008 from Tony Kimmet (NRCS)
o Manu’a group (American Samoa) Pan-sharpened Natural Color QuickBird; August 2008 from Land Info (direct purchase).
o Manu’a group (American Samoa) Pan-sharpened Color-Infrared QuickBird; August 2008 from Land Info (direct purchase).
· All Archive Imagery Available
Island Imagery Available
Guam IKONOS; QuickBird
CNMI IKONOS; QuickBird
Palau QuickBird
American Samoa QuickBird
Federated States of Micronesia QuickBird
Republic of the Marshall Islands QuickBird
Hawaii QuickBird
· Data Distribution Status
o All archive image data have been distributed to corresponding islands/sates with the latest transfer provided as part of our workshop materials.
o The new Manu’a group QuickBird has been provided to American Samoa.
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