| As
of 2009, the Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial
Analysis (CRSSA) is celebrating its 20th year in the Environmental
and Natural Resource Sciences building on the Cook Campus
of Rutgers University. CRSSA's active research and development program focuses on advancing the application of various geo-spatial technologies including remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS). CRSSA also develops spatial-statistical analysis/modeling techniques to the environmental, agricultural and natural resource sciences and management. The Center, directed by Dr. Richard G. Lathrop, provides students, faculty, staff and other researchers with state-of-the-art facilities for remote sensing/GIS/GPS research and teaching. |
|
Projects
and Research
Projects at CRSSA have a direct impact on many issues critical to New
Jersey. Project and research partners span government, universities, and
other non-profit organizations. CRSSA also collaborates with other departments,
centers and institutes within Rutgers University.
Current
and recent projects at CRSSA:
 |
Monitoring New Jersey's Changing Landscape |
| Using remote sensing imagery, CRSSA continues to map changes in land use/land cover across the New Jersey region. State government and non-profit groups are using these data to improve land use planning and wildlife habitat protection. | |
| Recent
Project(s)/Web Site: New
Jersey Land Cover Change Analysis Project: 1972, 1984, 1995 Current: New Jersey Land Cover Update: 2000 Project Leader: Rick Lathrop |
|
GIS for Crop Monitoring and Precison Agriculture |
| A collaboration between CRSSA and Rutgers University Cooperative Extension is bringing advanced geospatial technology out into the farmers' fields with projects ranging from crop and nutrient management, equine parasitioology and wildlife damage. | |
| Web
Site: GPS
for Field Crop Monitoring/IPM CRSSA Program Leader: Marilyn Hughes |
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New York - New Jersey Highlands |
|
New York
- New Jersey Highlands Regional Assessment Update 2001-2002 Applying
GIS-based Tools for Land Use Planning in the New Jersey Highlands: |
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Developing Geo-spatial Tools for Farmland and Open Space Preservation |
| Faculty from CRSSA and the department of Agriculture, Food and Resource Economics have been investigating the integration of GIS technology and econometric modeling to allow spatially distributed land use change modeling. With funding from the USDA National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program, CRSSA is developing of community-based geospatial technological tools to aid in the planning and prioritization of farmland and open space preservation. | |
| Web
Site: GIS and Farmland Preservation Project Leader: David Tulloch |
|
Coastal Zone and Watershed Management |
| CRSSA
is participating in several projects in New Jersey's coastal zone
applying GIS and remote sensing for landscape/watershed ecological
analysis. In cooperation with the RU Institute of Marine and Coastal
Sciences, CRSSA is playing a lead role in coordinating GIS activities
of the Barnegat Bay Estuary Program and the Mullica River-Great Bay
National Estuarine Research Reserve. CRSSA is working with the NJ
Pinelands Commission to develop a landscape-level environmental monitoring
system for the Pinelands National Reserve. Current and past projects include the study of Habitat Loss and Alteration in the Barnegat Bay watershed, Barnegat Bay Build-out Analysis, Submerged Aquatic Vegetation mapping, Boater's Guide to Barnegat Bay and Little Egg Harbor and Brown Tide Bloom Modeling. |
|
| Web
Site: NJ Coastal Studies: Barnegat
Bay CRSSA Lead Investigator: Rick Lathrop |
|
Forest Resources Management |
| CRSSA
has been developing remote sensing techniques to map and monitor forest
health and advanced statistical methods to improve forest inventory
and growth modeling. Mapping and Monitoring Hemlock Forest Decline in the New Jersey Highlands and Surrounding Region Current work includes the continuation of hemlock woody adelgid infestation mapping in collaboration with the USDA Forest Service. Web Site: Hemlock Forest Decline in New Jersey CRSSA Investigators: Rick Lathrop, Denise Royle Assessing Uncertainty in Mechanistic Forest Growth Process Models As concerns over potential global change mount, many scientists have become interested in assessing the potential effects on forest using mechanistic computer simulation models. However, traditional methods for assessing model uncertainty are not applicable with mechanistic models. To overcome this drawback, we are using Bayesian synthesis, which allows us to incorporate all existing information to determine confidence intervals for predictions of forest growth. Project Leader: Ed Green |
|
Riparian Corridor Studies |
| Influence
of land cover on riparian plant community health Riparian areas are important landscape elements for water quality and habitat related resources. However, riparian zones are often narrow vegetated corridors that intersect a wide array of different land cover types. The focus of this study is to understand how the adjacent land cover as well as land cover at the subwatershed scale influence composition, structure and viability of the riparian plant community. Project Leader: Colleen Hatfield Invasive Species and Stream Networks Research is underway which focuses on if and how the spatial configuration of a particular habitat might facilitate the spread of exotic species. Stream networks and associated riparian habitats are serving as a model systems to study how the spatial connectivity and configuration of habitat resources might influence the extent of exotic riparian plant distributions in drainage networks. Project Leader: Colleen Hatfield Wetland function along an urbanization gradient The upper reaches of the Passaic River encompasses some of the largest intact riverine wetland complexes in the area but the area is also under increasing development pressure. The study focus is to better understand how wetland functions respond to upstream and adjacent land use changes in time and space. Project Leader: Colleen Hatfield |
|
Mapping New Jersey's Vernal Pools |
| In
conjunction with new, long-awaited Department of Environmental Protection
(NJDEP) legislation adopted in September 2001 that affords vernal
pools protection, the NJDEP Endangered and Nongame Species Program's
established its Vernal Pool Project, which is dedicated effort mapping
and surveying vernal pools throughout the state. Vernal pools that
provide documented habitat for certain amphibian and reptiles species
will be afforded regulatory protection through the new rule. Because of their ephemeral nature and small size, locating vernal pools with conventional mapping is a challenging task. Therefore, CRSSA has been contracted to develop a suite of computer-aided techniques to identify and delineate vernal ponds in New Jersey using an assortment of on-screen digitizing, image processing and GIS-based classification techniques. |
|
| Web
Site: Mapping Critical Wildlife Habitat:
Vernal Pools, Landscape Project CRSSA Lead Investigator: Rick Lathrop |
|
GIS and Society / Public Participatory GIS |
| Geospatial technologies are viewed both as having the ability to empower minority groups and marginalizing them. These tools can both serve public decisions and create serious privacy problems. CRSSA has co-sponsored a publication examining a variety of views on this subject. This interest has also led to an examination of the role that the technology plays in New Jersey non-profit groups with a particular focus on the way that GIS altered the organizations' participation in public processes. | |
| Project Leader: David Tulloch |
|
Mapping Essential Fish Habitat in the New York Bight |
| In cooperation with the USGS and NOAA, CRSSA went undersea for the first time. Using sonar imagery of the seafloor, CRSSA investigated the application of digital image processing/GIS techniques to map bottom types and delineate fish habitat. | |
| Project Leader: Rick Lathrop |
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Teaching Program
CRSSA's education mission spans the undergraduate, graduate and continuing professional education spheres. |
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Can I do research at CRSSA?
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What's the catch?
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Facilities
Facilities include over
thirty high performance UNIX and NT workstations and a variety of peripherals
include flat-bed scanner, color printer/plotters and digitizing tables.
CRSSA supports the most current versions of ESRI ArcGIS/ArcInfo/ArcView,
ERDAS Imagine, Trimble GPS Pathfinder and statistical analysis software.
CRSSA also has a variety of Global Positioning System (GPS) units and spectroradiometric
equipment to support field-based studies.
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Staff / Faculty Program Leaders
CRSSA researchers are involved in a number of research projects that utilize geo-spatial technologies in environmental, agricultural and natural resource sciences and management.
| CRSSA Staff | ||
| Richard Lathrop | Director | |
| David Tulloch | Associate Director for Program Development | |
| Kathy Peirano | Center Administrator | |
| James Trimble | Systems Administrator | |
| John Bognar | GIS Project Coordinator | |
| Scott Haag | GIS Coordinator | |
| Caroline Phillipuk | GIS Coordinator | |
| Marilyn Hughes | Rutgers Cooperative Extension Consultant |
| Faculty Program Leaders | ||
| Ed Green | Spatial Statistics | |
| Jean Marie Hartman | Land Planning | |
| Richard Lathrop | Remote Sensing | |
| Julie Lockwood | Wildlife Conservation | |
| George Nieswand | Education | |
| Peter Oudemans | Precision Agriculture | |
| Peter Parks | Policy Analysis | |
| Dave Robinson | Climatology | |
| Emily Russell | Historical Ecology | |
| Peter Smouse | Spatial Genetics | |
| David Tulloch | GIS | |
| Lyna Wiggins | Transportation GIS | |
| Ming Xu | Ecological Modeling | |