Happy New Year

Dear LCLUCers, friends of LCLUC and international colleagues,

Happy New Year! In keeping with the LCLUC tradition, I would like to summarize our past year achievements, mention some future plans and convey my best wishes to the whole LCLUC family and our friends around the world.

This past year, our program has proved time and again its uniqueness as a truly interdisciplinary scientific theme that addresses the impacts of the changes in land cover and land use. The most recent geographic focus for the program has been on Asia, with socio-economic aspects of land use remaining an integral part of the program. Along with the continued observations from the LCLUC workhorse mission – the Landsat program –, we have experienced a tremendous increase in the number of observations at the landscape scale, thanks to our partner agency ESA’s Sentinel program. Our program, along with many colleagues around the world, is investing in joint efforts to use this opportunity and develop multi-source methods in studying LCLUC. Enduring program budget cuts we continue to produce cutting-edge science (no pun intended) and excel in it. And I appreciate contributions from each and every one of you in keeping the LCLUC a vibrant, global outreach program at NASA’s Earth Science. Below are some details concerning the past year’s progress in the LCLUC family.

Proposals

We selected 9 out of 25 submitted LCLUC-2016 proposals, with 6 focused on land use in Southeast Asia and 3 on LCLUC processes in the Caucasus, which has been an understudied geographic area of Northern Eurasia during all the years I’ve been with the program. The 6 SE Asia projects joined the South/Southeast Asia Regional Initiative (SARI) and the 3 Caucasus projects will contribute to the Northern Eurasia Program (NEESPI) that has recently transitioned to a new phase and new name, NEFI – North Eurasia’s Future Initiative). The Caucasus projects will also enhance the line of research on land use in mountainous regions that we started about four years ago.

The NASA ROSES LCLUC-2017 was the second Multi-Source Land Imaging (MuSLI) round and was run with one step. As a result, 8 proposals were selected out of 33 submitted. Three projects will work on product generation (Type I), while five will develop prototype algorithms (Type II) that use multiple sources of data.

I’d like to congratulate the newly selected PI’s and Co-I’s, some of them being LCLUC veterans and others being newcomers to the program. We’d like to welcome the newcomers and their international collaborators to the LCLUC family. I am sorry for those who did not succeed in being selected this year, the competition was strong and there was insufficient funding to support all of the competitive proposals. Please try other programs and the next LCLUC call, with the deadline for the step-1 LCLUC-2018 one year from now (ROSES-2018) will be announced shortly.

I usually remind and encourage LCLUCers to pay attention to non-LCLUC ROSES elements, such as the Carbon Cycle program, Interdisciplinary Science (IDS) Program, the Terrestrial Ecology and Terrestrial Hydrology programs, and others. Recall that the LCLUC Science Team includes not only projects that are funded through the LCLUC base funds but also those LCLUC-related projects that are funded through some of the above-mentioned Earth Science programs or some selections from those programs that are indeed supported by the LCLUC funds. For example, a couple of Carbon Cycle selections from its recent round (PI’s: Connghe Song and Jiquan Chen) are supported by LCLUC and became part the LCLUC Science Team. The recent IDS selections (PI’s: Jiaguo Qi and Charlie Vorosmarty) are going full speed in their research in coordination with the other relevant SARI LCLUC projects.

Science Team Meetings

The last spring Science Team Meeting was focused on projects on land use in mountains and synthesis projects were also presented. There was also a special, closed session on MuSLI preliminary results, with a detailed working discussion between MuSLI team members. There was a clear indication that international participation at the meeting is a weak point in this team, primarily because funding for our international collaborators is not allocated (and actually not allowed to be sponsored by NASA) in these projects. We will have to figure out how to bypass this obstacle and facilitate international participation in the future LCLUC Science Team meetings. In this context, the 3rd joint EARSeL LULC & NASA LCLUC Workshop to be held in Chania, Greece (11-12 July 2018) will provide an opportunity for closer coordination with our international colleagues. I’d like to express again my appreciation for the outstanding leadership in MuSLI activities by Project Scientist Jeff Masek (NASA GSFC) and his ESA counterpart Benjamin Koetz (ESA/ESRIN). The 2018 spring Science Team meeting will be held Apr 3-5 in Maryland and will include presentations from MuSLI and Landsat Science Team recently selected projects. The main theme of the ST meeting first two days will be SARI.

The regional international LCLUC Science Team meeting for 2017 was held in July in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I’d like to commend Krishna Vadrevu (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center) who continues serving proactively and effectively as SARI Project Scientist. He is enhancing LCLUC-SERVIR interactions (SERVIR is the NASA-USAID program directed at developing capacity building in remote sensing capabilities worldwide). Currently, we are trying to develop a broader consortium for coordinating meetings and training activities by various organizations in the US and internationally, such as SARI, SERVIR, LCLUC, GOFC-GOLD, SilvaCarbon, GFOI and others. This consortium will grow as more and more organizations become interested in a joint coordination of their meetings and trainings related to land cover and land use. The principle idea is to leverage funding and exchange plans, as well as develop a common pool of trainers, but mostly to avoid conflicting dates for events. The near-term goal is to improve coordination for the SARI region but the ultimate goal for a consortium is to coordinate all the meetings/training events globally.

The line of SARI thematic meetings continued last May in New Delhi, India. In addition to the above-mentioned July SARI/LCLUC ST meeting in Thailand, a Data Training event next February will be hosted by Thai Space Agency GISTDA with the help of our regional partners Tanita Suepa (GISTDA) and Perry V. (KMUTT U.). Next May, the next LCLUC-Atmosphere Interactions Workshop will be held in the Philippines, co-sponsored by our Japanese partners at NIES. In August, a SARI Water-Energy-Food Nexus workshop and training will be held in Laos. All of the events will be announced on the LCLUC website.

Publication Products

The publication of the book on Drylands in Central Asia at Springer has been delayed due to some editorial issues. I recently assumed the leadership on compiling and editing this book with the help of Jiquan Chen, Michigan State U.), Geoff Henebry (South Dakota State U.) and Martin Kappas (Inst. Geography, Goettingen, Germany). Hopefully, the book will be submitted within a few months. This book extends the series of the NEESPI LCLUC books published during the last several years (on the Arctic, Siberia, East Asian drylands and Eastern Europe). All contributions by LCLUC program members and our non-US LCLUC colleagues are appreciated.

I am always grateful to PI's who keep us posted on their achievements concerning published results in peer-reviewed journals and press releases. They should be submitted not only to me but to our website curator Kris Lasko (UMD), who diligently maintains and improves the LCLUC website (many kudos to him). Your updates on achievements provide the LCLUC leadership with material to showcase your projects on our website and in our quarterly e-newsletter, as well as facilitate promoting your projects to NASA upper management.

Towards Virtual Constellation

Research on monitoring land with moderate resolution has intensified worldwide owing to the freely accessible ESA Sentinel Program satellite data. Those data together with Landsat time series and current observations provided a serious breakthrough in studying changes in land cover/use. Two main factors contributed to this quantitative leap: first, the frequency of mid-resolution (Sentinel-2 and Landsat) observations increased, and second, the global continuous radar data from Sentinel-1 are becoming more and more utilized by researchers worldwide. The collaboration of NASA LCUCers with the ESA-affiliated European scientists working on remote sensing applications with Sentinel data has been accelerating specifically by the MuSLI projects, with the new MuSLI round and the recent USGS selections for the Landsat Science Team, with some of lucky PI’s being selected by both NASA and USGS. ESA launched Sentinel-2b last spring so that the frequency of observing the same target on earth has increased even more. The experience obtained during this year will play a critical role in implementing the virtual constellation concept. I still have hopes that eventually researchers will use satellite data other than those from Landsat and Sentinels. My hopes are that SARI activities will facilitate the use of Indian, Vietnamese and Thai satellite data.

The preparation for the Landsat-9 mission is going full speed forward with the launch planned for December of 2020.

International Programs

The NEFI (Northern Eurasia’s Future Initiative, formerly NEESPI) and MAIRS (Monsoon Asia Integrated Research for Sustainability), as contributions to the Future Earth program, have the same leaders as before: Pasha Groisman (UCAR/NOAA, see http://neespi.org/NEFI-ExecutiveSummary.pdf) and Jiaguo Qi (Michigan State U., see http://www.futureearth.org/projects/mairs-fe), respectively.

Next year we will have the third joint LCLUC-EARSeL (European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories) workshop in Chania, Greece, in conjunction with the EARSeL symposium. Ioannis Manakos (EARSeL lead in LULC Special Interest Group) and i with the help of the local host Chariton Kalaitzidis (MAICH, Greece) have been working on organizing this workshop, which will focus on water, food and sustainability research supported by Earth Observations and derived remote sensing products. The LCLUC closely collaborates with the Global Land Program office (Executive Officer Ariane De Bremond at the University of Bern, Switzerland, part-time at UMD). There are plans to hold a joint workshop on land use in mountains, in Switzerland the near future.

Regional Networks

One of the goals of the Global Observations of Forest Cover and Land Cover Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD) project, supported by the NASA LCLUC, is building regional networks. The SCERIN-5 meeting in Pecs, Hungary, proved once again that the South Central East European Regional Information Network (SCERIN) is the best self-organized network among other networks, and could be used as a model by others. The next network meeting (SCERIN-6) is planned for June 11-14 2018 in Zagreb, Croatia and will be hosted by the University of Zagreb and the Faculty of Geodesy. Again, I commend the SCERIN leaders Petya Campbell (UMBC/NASA GSFC) and Jana Albrechtova (Charles U., Prague, Czech Rep.) for their thoughtful coordination of the network activities. Networks in Africa, Asia, and Latin America play a crucial role in regional science coordination and provide the interface between GOFC-GOLD Implementation Teams and data users in the regions. Data Initiative Training sessions for data users on all continents have been extremely useful for regional capacity building and will continue in the future.

Last September, a GOFC-GOLD Networks Summit was held in Tbilisi, Georgia, in which representatives from each regional network, including the active, less active and emerging ones, got together to exchange their experiences, achievements, and issues from their corresponding region. GOFC-GOLD Executive Committee members and Implementation Team leaders also attended and discussed the organizational issues, the current structure, and paths forward. We are grateful to the host of the meeting Giorgi Ghambashidze of the Agricultural University of Tbilisi for organizing beautiful receptions, meeting arrangements, and a field trip to observe land use in mountains. Prior to the Networks Summit, a kick-off meeting for the new Caucasus regional network (CaucRIN) was held, co-organized from our side by Volker Radeloff (U. Wisconsin). Based on my personal observations, I’d say the participants from the region expressed enthusiasm and are looking forward to fruitful collaborations. The fact that three LCLUC proposals on the Caucasus were recently accepted for funding certainly helps a little. Dr. Qi (Michigan State U.) gave an update on the activities in Central Asia and it seems that the currently dormant regional network (CARIN) is being revived and there is a good chance that it will soon start functioning since some external funding is expected to come to the region.  Along with SARI, a new network for South Asia is emerging (SARIN), Krishna Vadrevu (NASA MSFC, SARI Project Scientist) is helping to build the SARIN, which will facilitate the exchange of data, ideas, and information between the scientists in South Asia. The Southeast Asia regional network – SEARRIN – has been active for many years as well as the South American network REDLATIF. Four African networks had their representatives at the Tbilisi Summit, some being more active, some less. Getting together and exchanging information and experiences for network representative from all over the world was very useful and gave impetus for some networks to increase their activities. The attendees agreed that such a Network Summit should be held regularly, so a similar meeting is being considered in a couple of years.

Best wishes for a productive year and enhancement of regional activities to all active GOFC-GOLD-ers. The Fire Implementation Team has a new US co-lead David Roy (South Dakota State U.) and the Land Cover Implementation Team also had some changes with Brice Mora stepping down. The START coordinator Senay Habtezion is also stepping down – the GOFC-GOLD leadership would like to express appreciation for his support in organizing various events, such as workshop and training. I would like to greet the new Executive Director at START Cheikh Mbow who replaced Hassan Virji and wish him a fruitful cooperation with the LCLUC program.

Capacity Building

The LCLUC program puts much emphasis on its educational component. All of our international Science Team meetings include training sessions for building capacity to use NASA EO data in the region of the meeting. The NASA-ESA Trans-Atlantic Training (TAT) initiative has had five sessions by now. The next session is planned, as before, in conjunction with the next SCERIN meeting in Croatia. Best wishes in the New Year and thanks for organizing the TAT sessions go to Premek Stych (Charles U. in Prague) and Francesco Sarti (ESA) for helping in coordination and providing support.

This past year the coordination of capacity building activities between LCLUC and other organizations have improved. SERVIR, GFOI, SilverCarbon, FAO, and World Bank are all active in organizing training workshops that have similar topics and even are held in the same locations as LCLUC. However, there is still much room for improvement in coordinating timing, location, trainers and regional users. Krishna Vadrevu kindly agreed to lead the coordination effort and to form a consortium for Global Observations Meetings and Trainings (GLOMAT-C), which includes some of the above-mentioned organizations and is expected to grow. GLOMAT is developing a common calendar to facilitate coordination. The current focus is on coordinating events in SARI region and taking into account the LCLUC-related events over the globe to account for the conflicting dates. Our Thai friends Perry (KMUTT U.) and Tanita (GISTDA) will help coordination of the events in Thailand, as far as the Thai institutions and Thai Space Agency are concerned as well as other ASEAN activities. Plans for activities other than training may also be included at a later stage.

Program Support

We continuously improve the program website, maintained by the LCLUC Program Support Team at U. Maryland: Kristofer Lasko, Catherine Nakalembe, and Indrani Kommareddy. Webinars continue and can also be listened to as recordings on the LCLUC website. The IT support of LCLUC activities by Jack O’Bannon is appreciated. If you haven’t looked carefully at the LCLUC website please do so at your leisure – you’ll find very interesting things, like a map of projects locations, team members pages, announcements of LCLUC and LCLUC-related meetings and much more.

I’d like to reemphasize the needed input from LCLUCers on their metadata and links to their datasets from their projects. By the way, ‘once an LCLUCer always an LCLUCer’, implying that even when funding from the program is not currently available for someone, all LCLUC alumni are invited to keep in touch, attend LCLUC events and submit more proposals.

I repeat my appeal to all LCLUCers to help us in producing statistics of our achievements, by letting me know of any high-visibility publications and books, as well as their student achievements (awards for papers, etc.).

I’d like to wish all LCLUC members, friends and international colleagues new exciting results and a fruitful New Year 2018.

Garik