Indigenous Remote Sensing Collaborative: Project Turnbuckle - Peter Poole

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Remote Sensing

Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 March 2010 09:19 Written by Peter Poole - posted by RMcKeon

PROJECT NAME: Turnbuckle                        

Lead Organisations and Persons

The project is a collaboration between Peter Poole (Local Earth Observation) and Dana Slaymaker (Resource Mapping). Dana Slaymaker is responsible for technical development; Peter Poole for organising projected field training, testing, and manuals.

The decision to undertake this joint project is very recent and it is not yet funded.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

In a historical perspective: this project attempts to reverse the criticism once regularly levelled at satellite-based remote sensing in the 1970’s - as a technology in search of an application. The imaging technique we have developed is exclusively applications-driven, and the ultimate goal of this project is to make this methodology also community-driven.

Strategy

The strategic goal is to amplify community control over the acquisition of environmental data, data by equipping them to gather their own aerial remotely sensed data and to control the process by which those raw data are converted to applicable information.

Tactics

Specifically , to develop an improved version of the aerial imaging system tested in the course of 13 training surveys with Maya and Garifuna conservation groups in Toledo, Belize, described in the attached  report “Information; the First Conservation Asset”.

To operationalise that Toledo Mk2 imaging system in the context of four technology transfer and training projects, based on the collaborative model that evolved in Belize. The first in Toledo; the others in the Pacific, Eastern Africa, Canada/USA (in any order).

Following the Belize approach, each project will be organised as a collaboration with community-based groups that have acquired capacities in GIS. The groups will determine the data-gathering priorities that frame the training exercises and will subsequently learn how to plan data acquisition missions, operate the system in the air and process the data

Responsibilities

RM and LEO can assume responsibilities for technical development, and for the induction of a Toledo Mk2 system into a community GIS setting: training in survey planning, data acquisition, post-mission processing and downloading raw data to a GIS, backed up with manuals. We would seek to leave one unit at each site, for collective use.

Applications-Driven Development

Besides traditional applications such as habitat mapping, wildlife census or detecting illegal logging and mining, we shall introduced applications specific to the rapidly evolving environmental services industry. Dana Slaymaker is working on a powerful technique for estimating carbon sequestration potential from stereoscopic light aircraft aerial imaging. Such accurate site-specific serial data is vital if communities are going to prevent what is beginning to happen in many remote indigenous territories: remotely controlled asset-stripping by the environmental services industry.

Toledo Mk2 Aerial Remote Sensing Unit  - from www.resourcemappinggis.com

The Toledo Mk2 imaging system is derived from the high end unit developed by Dana Slaymaker: “an external aerial camera mount that combines both multispectral and natural color cameras with a profiling laser altimeter, differential GPS, and inertial navigation system (INS). Contained in a modular pod that attaches to the window frame of any high-wing aircraft. These instruments automatically georeference digital imagery by projecting the position and orientation of each camera exposure to the surface, constructing accurate orthophoto mosaics without additional ground control points”

The Economics of Image Acquisition from Light Aircraft.

Taking image resolution and cover into account, data acquired in Yukon cost 70% less than Ikonos satellite imagery. In the Philippines, the data cost 50% less than Quickbird imagery. The key is logistics; contingency pre-planning of all surveys within 150-200 kms and real-time selection to maximise camera-on time and minimise weather effects.

Opportunities for Collaboration

The next, phase, dissemination via networks is not something that we are equipped to undertake. It makes far more sense to link up with existing networks. This is a potential start point for joining forces with the Indigenous Remote Sensing Collaborative.

The objective is not only to leave behind a new set of skills and a Toledo Mk2 imaging system for shared use, but for these projects to act as catalysts within the region, focal points to dissemination to indigenous communities through the region.

Indicators of success: Four community remote sensing centres positioned to collaborate with and build capacity for other indigenous GIS and stewardship groups in the region.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FIELD

Toledo Mk2 components are off-the-shelf. Their integration into a high performance but low cost system sets a new marker for the rest of the field. But, brilliant as the image acquisition system is, the more significant contribution will be how these images are used afterwards. The Toledo project confirmed the image acquisition part, and opened up the possibilities for the image application part. The first of the three contributions below was an unintended consequence of the Belize project; the others are now coming into view.

Open access to geocoded imagery. In the Belize case we left behind an open access library of 3,500 images of Toledo District, freely available to all community members.

This system enables communities to acquire, analysis and apply their own remote sensing data tailored to meet their information needs rather than depend upon external sources.

The data is formatted to facilitate exchange between indigenous GIS and resource groups, and global environmental monitoring agencies that rely on a flow of accurate serial data.

PARTICIPATION LEVEL

Dana Slaymaker is already slated to make a presentation at IGARSS 2010, of the advanced data acquisition system from which Toledo Mk2 is derived.

A further possibility is that we give joint presentation. Dana would present the Toledo Mk2 Unit. I would present upon its manifold applications, of which I have many visuals and the options for training and technology transfer to a community context.

Another option would be to track the sequence of four projects on the websites.

LINKS  AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Attached is the report on the Belize project, using the Toledo Mk1 combine.

Also a document which is still in draft but illustrates a number of applications of aerial imagery for First Nations communities in Canada, Suriname, Ecuador, Belize. The (out-dated) cover page is from a Local Earth Observation brochure prepared for the 1992 Earth Summit.

In the proposed four projects, we shall be working with the same Maya and Garifuna groups as in the earlier, but will be inviting participating from indigenous community-based groups in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Mexico.

The Pacific project will be a collaboration with the Locally Managed Marine Area network, of over 400 community-managed coastal conservation areas. LMMA was represented at the Belize project.

The Eastern Africa project will be a collaboration with a number of pastoralist communities and associations who have set up their own community conservancies, or wish to do so. These include Mursi, Bodi and Suri pastoralists in Ethiopia, Samburu, Rendille and Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania – and possibly Ngok Dinka in southern Sudan. The fourth suggestion, USA/Canada would be left to the IMN