Concept information
Preferred term
CBMAS
Definition
- State and local government officials have long struggled with the complexity involved in protecting and improving water quality in their jurisdictions. Due to technical, environmental, and regulatory complications, these officials have grappled with this important issue, often coming up short of a workable, consistent plan for water resource management. Recently, scientific literature has shown that the amount of impervious surface in a watershed proves to be a useful, easily identifiable indicator of overall water quality. In response to this finding, the Towson University Center for Geographic Information Sciences (CGIS) and its partners--the Towson University Department of Geography and Environmental Planning, the Maryland Space Grant Consortium, the Washington College Center for the Environment and Society, and the Maryland Virtual High School--completeda project to map impervious cover for the entire Chesapeake Bay and Maryland Coastal Bays watersheds. The goal of this project is to supply state and local official with the impervious surface data and with the technical and theoretical background they need to integrate imperviousness into their water quality protection measures. To complete the impervious surface mapping project, CGIS used remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) technologies to identify pervious and impervious land cover types throughout the Chesapeake Bay and Maryland Coastal Bays watersheds. The data was then "clipped" by watershed and county boundaries tomake the information as useful as possible to its intended audience--state and local government officials. This data was then uploaded onto a CGIS server to be distributed to its end users via an online Infomart, complete with raw remotely sensed data (Landsat 7 EMT+), geospatial data, and background information onremote sensing/digital image processing. Additionally, the Infomart contains a link for K-12 teachers, which includes lesson plans on imperviousness that teachers can use within their classrooms. K-12 teachers and their students have already played an integral role in the impervious surface project by ground truthing over 15,000 land-cover points, using portable GPS units supplied to them by CGIS. Finally, the Infomart serves as the focus of a Project NEMO (Non-Point Education of Municipal Officials), university-based outreach program to educategovernment officials on watershed ecology, imperviousness, and potential mitigation measures. For more information, link to "http://chesapeake.towson.edu/" (en)
Broader concept
- A - C (en)
URI
https://gcmd.earthdata.nasa.gov/kms/concept/6b41bc6a-45b9-443d-bd3a-40d3314b725d
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