1. National Consortia for Remote Sensing in Transportation Environmental Assessment Mississippi State University Progress and Strategic Directions

2. First Year For MSU, as the lead university in the environmental assessment consortia, there were four strategic first year milestone components: Management and Imagery Products Research Needs Assessment Gulf Coast Research Activities Outreach Activities

3. Lead University Strategic Directions Roles and Responsibilities At MSU, the strategic outlook on the initial role of the lead university is to provide leadership to the consortia through helping projects to define, organize, and accomplish research goals and objectives and through assisting with the management and the acquisition of needed data resources. As the consortium progresses, the role of the lead university will shift to a supporting “center of excellence” as the core components of that functionality are incrementally developed.

4. Management and Imagery Products Management of the consortium required travel to many events for technical information exchange and planning. The management and travel activities are expected to increase due to the addition of an international programs component to the consortia.

5. Management and Imagery Products Data acquisition was a major focus for the first year. The lead university managed and coordinated the procurement of needed data for the projects. The need for project data for following years will be reduced by about 60 percent and that reduction will be reprogrammed to support the development of core functions of the “center of excellence.”

6. Management and Imagery Products Year two data acquisitions will be largely focused on supporting the data needs of newly identified collaborative efforts currently under development as well as additional data needs of the currently supported projects. Newly identified collaborative efforts are being developed to address priority issues identified through research needs assessment.

7. Research Needs Assessment Through multi-agency scoping efforts, several areas of priority research needs were established. In some cases, existing research efforts have been modified to meet assessed needs and in other cases, new collaborative efforts have begun and are in the early stages of planning. NCRST-E has identified State DOTs that have current projects that contain research components that fit the identified research needs.

8. Research Needs Assessment New Research Collaboration Matrix Wetlands Mapping and Assessment Iowa DOT Habitat Assessment and Characterization Washington DOT Wetlands Identification and Data Fusion North Carolina DOT Watershed/Raster Characterization Florida DOT LC/LUC and Baseline Characterization Mississippi DOT

9. New Research Development Example In the case of Iowa DOT, they have expressed a desire to collaborate on a wetlands assessment effort and will contribute cost share while the consortia contributes data. Iowa Dot has identified four separate locations where they need to do wetland assessment. In these areas, collecting timely data is critical to allow the identification of vegetative communities that are highly seasonal.

10. Gulf Coast Research Activities Research objectives for the MSU Gulf Coast project were initially oriented upon LC/LUC in a coastal corridor. After further scoping, the priorities for this area have been adjusted to include aspects of corridor preservation in a coastal zone area of considerable population growth. LC/LU baseline and change analyses are important components of the research and will serve to facilitate and complement the study of corridor preservation and sustainability issues in a fragile coastal ecosystem.

11. Outreach Activities Some of the outreach activities that have been identified are included in the following list: Center of Excellence Development Congressional Briefings International Programs New Project Development TRB Meetings GIS-T, URISA, AASHTO, ESRI, and ASPRS Cookbook and factsheet publications Other Conferences and Meetings

12. New Strategic Components For the second year of the consortia, several new strategic components have been identified: Management and International Programs Cookbook Development and Publication Development of Center of Excellence

13. Management and International Programs The new international program development component will require time, travel, and additional international outreach to build affiliations and collaborative research relationships with partnering groups. Additionally, for potential international demonstration efforts the development of materials, applications, and high-end presentation content will require a significant investment of time, technology, and effort.

14. Cookbook Development and Publication The development of cookbook publications that describe the application of remote sensing technology in the areas of the individual consortium will provide a significant visible beneficial product for the NCRST effort. For Environmental Assessment, five topics have been identified as "strawmen" for cookbook development.

15. Cookbook Development and Publication “Strawman” topics for cookbook development include: Watershed Delineation and Characterization LC/LUC Detection and Characterization Ecosystem and Habitat Analysis Using High-Resolution Elevation and Image Data for Environmental Visualization Using Remote Sensing Technology for Wetland Mapping

16. Development of Center of Excellence For each of the consortia to succeed in the task of developing a world-class center of excellence for the consortia's specific area of responsibility, certain fundamental core functions must be developed and fostered. Advanced Curriculum Development Graduate Student Research Support Advanced Data Management RS/GIS-T Computational Earth Sciences Lab Web Server Development & Support Resources

17. Strategic Development Discussion Points Roles and Responsibilities Outreach Activities Management and Image Products International Programs Research Needs Assessment Cookbook Topics and Process Development of Center of Excellence