Observational Needs for IGOL

1. Observational Needs for IGOL Contribution from Anthony C. Janetos The Heinz Center

2. Observational Needs • Request from Chair to consider observational needs from perspective of Millennium Ecosystem Assessment • Have considered research/assessment done for MA on rapid land-cover change • Considered findings that are emerging from the individual chapters within MA conditions and trends • Considered national/international environmental indicators processes

3. Observation Needs • Request from Chair to consider intersection of • High priority observations • Observations where there are clear marked deficiencies • Observations needing improvements where it is clear what is needed to make improvements • Focus on Land, so not considering ocean, marine, atmospheric related issues • Considering remotely sensed data primarily, but need to recognize that must be accompanied by in situ and human dimensions data

4. Summaries • “Landsat-Class” data provided globally, operationally • Continuous, near-real time fire monitoring • Elevation • High resolution sampling for ecosystem disturbance and recovery • High resolution sampling for changes in urban and built environment • Continuous, near-real time net primary productivity monitoring

5. “Landsat-Class Data” • Requires an operational commitment for global data • Clearly a foundation of land-cover, land-cover change and land-use monitoring • Must be consistent, replicable, allow for technological development • Must be augmented by quite different sorts of data for economic, human dimensions, ecosystem services, biodiversity

6. Fire Monitoring • Technical issues have been largely worked out (for remote sensing) • Need to ensure international coordination and sharing of data • Questions of regional/global implementation • Monitoring of both occurrence and of recovery from fire (more on this later) • Possible transition from research to truly operational status?

7. Elevation • Critical to maintain high-quality elevation data sets • Clearly important for a wide range of hydrologic, hazard-related, and other environmental applications

8. Primary Productivity • Global monitoring of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation at high temporal resolution • Move into operational status, but allow for technological evolution • Foundation for modeling and calculation of a number of ecosystem services • As with other issues, needs to be accompanied by a wide range of other physical, human dimensions data for understanding of consequences of change

9. Disturbance and Recovery of Ecosystems • Disturbance (e.g. fire, storms, harvesting, pests) critical feature of ecosystem dynamics • Drives a lot of carbon, nitrogen, biological dynamics • Can be monitored in part with very high resolution sampling • May be in part a research topic to evaluate how much sampling, temporal dynamics, and where it needs to be done

10. Urban Environments • Growth of urban and suburban environments a very important global issue • Most of growth in urban environments over next several decades will occur in developing countries • Systematic sampling of these environments for quantitative analysis of pressures on goods and services going to be important to support • Clearly needs to be developed in concurrence with a wide variety of other types of data