GeoWorld

GeoWorld August 2011

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Time-sensitive GeoWorld departments such as NetLink, PeopleLink, Product News and Business News now are maintained solely at the GeoPlace.com Web site. Check there often for the latest updates as they happen. Salmon Fishing Season Monitored from Space Poachers are poachers, but even law-abiding fish- ery managers don't always thoroughly follow law requirements. During the 2010 fishing season, the Sakhalin Ecological Watch checked into messages saying that the length of stationary nets, installed near the southeastern shore of Sakhalin, Russia, for humpback salmon fisheries, exceeded the maximum size. Ecological Watch representatives performed GPS- based field inspections of one such net, which exceeded the maximum allowed length of stationary nets for Pacific salmon catch by 1.74 kilome- ters. Ecological Watch then developed a method to monitor fishing-rules compliance from space, receiving satellite images from ScanEx Research & Development Center. Out of 59 nets seen via satellite, 24 were installed with violations: length was exceeded, "the rule per- pendicular" wasn't observed (i.e., the net ends nar- rowed, basically blocking the estuary), and they were installed closer to the estuary than allowed. A special meeting then was held at the regional fishery agency, where it was demonstrated to regulatory structures representatives and fishery managers how easy it is to detect fishing-rules violations from space. Competition Selects Best High-School Geo Projects The Thacher Environmental Research Contest, which encourages high-school students to apply geospatial and related technologies to study the planet, named a "nitro- gen footprint" project as winner of its 2011 competition. The annual Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) event gives cash prizes to students in grades 9-12 who complete projects that show the best use of satellites, geospatial technologies or data to study Earth. The contest was founded in honor of former IGES board member Peter Thacher, who died in 1999. Thacher served as deputy executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, a NASA advisor and president of the Earth Council Foundation/U.S. The contest's winning entry from student Joseph Arehart analyzed nitrogen concentrations measured in fungal plants called lichens to establish baseline pollution levels in Boulder County, Colo. Changes in the area's "nitrogen footprint" through time can help determine the effective- ness of pollution-mitigation efforts, according to IGES. "We believe it's essential to provide an opportunity for, and recognize the exceptional work of, students like Joseph and this year's other winners in the area of envi- ronmental research," said Nancy Colleton, IGES president. "They will contribute greatly to our future, which is sure to feature increasing environmental challenges." Arehart's first-place project, which earned him $2,000, combined chemical analysis, GPS and GIS to visualize how nitrogen concentrations in lichens vary between urban and wilderness settings. A map from the winning entry shows the concentrations of nitrogen (indicated by the relative size of the circle) at each of 10 collection sites using GPS visualization software. A second-place award went to Darwin Li of Herndon, Va., who developed algorithms relating chlorophyll and turbidity levels in the Chesapeake Bay to satellite mea- surements, using the algorithms to create a Web-based monitoring system. Third-place winner Lauren Gregory of Shawnee, Kan., assessed whether historical GIS data, rather than more costly field data, could be used to pre- dict the location of streamway erosion. AUGUST 2O11 / WWW . GEOPLA CE . COM 7

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