debor042

In continuation of Ann’s post a couple weeks back, conferences and meetings are very important in becoming a successful and knowledgeable graduate student. Currently, I am in Estes Park, Colorado, which is about 1.5 hours outside Denver and adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park for the  Long-Term Ecological Research All-Scientists Meeting . In a nut-shell, this meeting is held once every three years and brings together scientists and researchers from 26 LTER sites around the country and around the world. This meeting differs from a conference by being primarily focused on cross-site and interdisciplinary collaboration. This is done by holding working group discussion sessions surrounding a particular topic. Scientist that are interested in that topic can participate in a discussion session that has a specific outcome; typically information exchange, brainstorming, or a product such as data analysis or a journal article.   Map of all 26 LTER sites ...

The Everglades covers an area of 734 square miles, which is about half of the size of the state of Rhode Island and about 350,000 football fields. This is a very large area to cover and can become logistically difficult and costly when you are trying to understand the transformations of the Everglades ecosystem with respect to the natural and man-made modifications to the way water moves through the system.  What if there was a way to measure and monitor these changes to the landscape as a whole without even leaving your office?  Oh wait, there is! Satellites! Satellites have been orbiting the Earth (among other celestial bodies) for the past three decades. And since the release of free images from NASA Earth-oriented satellites like Landsat and MODIS , remote sensing science has taken huge strides to understanding Earth surface processes. More specifically, related to my research in the Everglades, I can use the multi-spectra l images to measure water quality (nutrient) and...