Spring Break
Professor leads study of mountain trail ecology
Graeme Swank
Issue date: 11/3/09 Section: News
11/03/09 - The old adage, "seeing the forest from the tree" has more significance than ever for one professor at the University of Rhode Island.
Yeqiao Wang, a professor of terrestrial remote sensing at URI, is leading a team of research scientists to study the changes of the Appalachian Trail ecosystem. The four-year $1.15 million project is being funded with a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Earth Sciences division.
The Appalachian Trail runs from Springer Mountain in northern Georgia to Mount Katahdin in central Maine. Along the way it crosses 14 states and intersects with eight national forests, six units of the National Park System, more than 70 state parks, forests and game management units, and 287 local jurisdictions.
Wang's research is the first to look at the Appalachian Trail ecosystem in its entirety, and not just at the individual habitats. He stated that although it makes sense to use first hand observation when studying small regions, this study region is so expansive that it must be studied as a whole, using satellite technology.
By using remote sensing from satellites instead of first-hand observations, professor Yeqiao Wang is looking at the Appalachian Trail in ways it never has been before, as a forest and not just as a group of trees.
The project uses NASA satellites to measure changes in the ecosystem such as plant density, species diversity, plant stress levels, and, most importantly, human development and usage. The data will be collected on a regular basis in order to detect any and every change.
"If you trace back, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, we know exactly what the Appalachian Trail ecosystem looked like, and we can compare that data to today," Wang said.
Both URI and NASA research scientists will formulate the data collected into prediction models. Wang's hope is that politicians will use the models in order to make knowledge-based decisions on a regional scale, and that these decisions will lead to better resource and land-use management.
Yeqiao Wang, a professor of terrestrial remote sensing at URI, is leading a team of research scientists to study the changes of the Appalachian Trail ecosystem. The four-year $1.15 million project is being funded with a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Earth Sciences division.
The Appalachian Trail runs from Springer Mountain in northern Georgia to Mount Katahdin in central Maine. Along the way it crosses 14 states and intersects with eight national forests, six units of the National Park System, more than 70 state parks, forests and game management units, and 287 local jurisdictions.
Wang's research is the first to look at the Appalachian Trail ecosystem in its entirety, and not just at the individual habitats. He stated that although it makes sense to use first hand observation when studying small regions, this study region is so expansive that it must be studied as a whole, using satellite technology.
By using remote sensing from satellites instead of first-hand observations, professor Yeqiao Wang is looking at the Appalachian Trail in ways it never has been before, as a forest and not just as a group of trees.
The project uses NASA satellites to measure changes in the ecosystem such as plant density, species diversity, plant stress levels, and, most importantly, human development and usage. The data will be collected on a regular basis in order to detect any and every change.
"If you trace back, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, we know exactly what the Appalachian Trail ecosystem looked like, and we can compare that data to today," Wang said.
Both URI and NASA research scientists will formulate the data collected into prediction models. Wang's hope is that politicians will use the models in order to make knowledge-based decisions on a regional scale, and that these decisions will lead to better resource and land-use management.
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