People, land, and ecosystems: leveraging NEON for socio-environmental synthesis workshop
Remote sensing observations provide a spatially and temporally consistent framework for characterizing land-use and land-cover change and landscape evolution. These data have been applied across scientific disciplines with immense potential for use in convergent research that can effectively sustain ecosystem functions and services to humanity. However, there is a continual need to advance applications of remote sensing to convergent research. The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) is a state-of-the-art sensor suite capable of simultaneously measuring the biogeochemistry and three-dimensional structure of complex vegetated landscapes. With NEON AOP, extremely high-quality hyperspectral and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data are now freely available to all users.
To enable convergent research that can effectively use AOP data, we need a rapid increase in the number and types of scientists who are knowledgeable about the capabilities of these data. If diverse groups of scientists were properly informed of relevant applications and trained on methods, new sources of remote sensing data could potentially catalyze convergent research, particularly in the area of land-use and land-cover change science. Therefore, we will initiate a foundational program, beginning with three-day workshop, called "People, Land, and Ecosystems: Leveraging NEON for Socio-Environmental Synthesis Workshop" at SESYNC to build capacity and catalyze the development of interdisciplinary teams of scientists who are addressing social and ecological science with remote sensing. At the workshop, participants will explore datasets relevant to their research questions and topics, learn more about the data collection process, gain exposure to data analysis techniques and challenges, and, importantly, discuss key areas for prioritization of NEON AOP resources. This workshop will build capacity in the area of remote sensing applications to socio-environmental synthesis with a particular focus on emerging technologies represented by NEON AOP data.