NSF NEON WORKSHOP: TOPOGRAPHIC, GEOMORPHIC, AND VEGETATION ANALYSIS WITH LIDAR

Nancy Glenn (Boise State) led a training workshop with Chris Crosby (UNAVCO), Tristan Goulden & Shelley Petroy (NEON), and me this last week on topographic, geomorphic, and vegetation analysis with lidar. We emphasized the NEON project and its substantial Airborne Observation Platform with its lidar scanners. Tristan is the Remote Sensing Specialist with lidar expertise for NEON and in charge of those acquisitions. Shelley is the data products lead for all of NEON. It was quite interesting to learn more about NEON and also to see the interesting interdisciplinary opportunities for research. The participants came from a range of backgrounds and were a pleasure to meet and work with.

Shelley Petroy and Chris Crosby sharing their knowledge with the group

The workshop web site has some good lecture and exercise/tutorial content (look towards the bottom at the "Workshop Material" link. I built some simple videos (look for playlists on NEON Points to Raster and NEON OpenTopography, Topographic Metrics and Drainage Network) demonstrating some aspects of the tutorials. At OpenTopography, we have started to distribute NEON lidar data (NEON D17 Pacific Southwest- California).

We had a great time in Boise. The classroom was excellent and Nancy was kind to schedule a civilized stop time in the afternoon so there was time for a run before the pleasant evening receptions. Below is a picture from above Boise:

An interesting coincidence was that at the same time as our workshop and in Boise was the Subduction Zone Observatory Workshop. I could imagine having been at that meeting too!