April’s map of the month illustrates how we move from pixels in a satellite image to automatically clustering pixels into discrete “objects” and being able to label those objects, its the difference between labeling a pixel “grass” and identifying a “Improved grassland paddock” and do this routinely and automatically.
https://www.teagasc.ie/rural-economy/rural-economy/spatial-analysis/gis-monthly-maps/
A great new study from Teagasc using Drones to map urine patches from grazing animals in fields.
It might seem an odd target but urine patches are intense sources of nutrients in the form of nitrates but also pollution in the form of run off and emissions of greenhouse gas Nitrous Oxide and pollutant Ammonia. The modeling of deposition rates and densities associated with different stocking rates and management systems will help improve our understanding of the nitrogen pollution pathways at farm and national scales.
Copernicus Sentinel-3B delivers first images: Less than two weeks after it was launched, the Copernicus Sentinel-3B satellite has delivered its first images of Earth. Exceeding expectations, this first set of images include the sunset over Antarctica, sea ice in the Arctic and a view of northern Europe.
As a quick follow up to last weeks post on new LiDAR data free for the country. Just thought I’d give it a test run sitting on the bus! Just clicking on the tile I wanted, no tiresome logging in, I got a 1m DSM and DTM for my area of interest, I load it into R using the raster package, subtracted one from the other and got a great looking canopy model- the whole thing took less than 5 mins! we should all be using this data to the fullest to encourage more sharing down the line.
Even this blog can’t escape the political environment at the moment. Two recent articles show how politics will affect the use of EO data in the future.
The first details how the Trump administration is planning to re-introduce fees for accessing US satellite data. This data has been free for a decade and has revolutionized the geospatial industry, especially in the US, helping to create a multi-billion dollar enterprise. However the decision is in keeping with the Trump administrations general hostility toward NASA’s EO program.
The second shows how Brexit is posing a significant threat to the UK’s space industry generally but specifically the UKs access to the non-public (i.e.e defence) services from the EUs Galileo program.
I suppose both are good news stories for ESA and Copernicus and perhaps they point to future opportunities in the space sector for Ireland?
Maynooth university, the main center of geospatial research in Ireland is looking for a lecturer in Remote Sensing/GIS. Its a great opportunity but closing date is May13th. Details here.
Very unusual remote sensing/geophys/ocean obs PhD opportunity in University of Ulster- using bathymetric techniques and others to survey and classify WW1 shipwreck sites in Irish Sea.
https://www.ulster.ac.uk/doctoralcollege/find-a-phd/239962
