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2003 NEWS AND HIGHLIGHTS
09.09.03 - Earth Science Data will be Used to Manage Indian Reservation
A proposal to help the Lakota tribe manage land use issues by means of NASA's Information Power Grid (IPG) resources and Earth science data has been awarded funding through a NASA cooperative agreement. The proposal calls for a joint collaboration with NASA's IPG team, Sinte Gleska University (a tribal university on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota), Earth Sat, Global Science and Technology, Inc., and the Earth Resources Observing Systems (EROS) Data Center, a field center for the U.S. Geological Surveys National Mapping Division.
The proposed work will receive funding to use Earth science data provided by EROS on the Rosebud reservation. Comprised of 890,000 acres, the reservation is particularly difficult to oversee without the use of planes to conduct aerial surveys an expense the tribe cannot afford. In addition to assisting with land management, the data will be used to track tribal history. Ancestors of the Lakota people were buffalo hunters, and examining data provided by EROS may shed light on previous buffalo migration patterns. IPG resources will be used to help collect, transport, and process all the Earth science data across multiple locations.
The grid will serve as the underpinnings for all of the distributed systems required for this work. All of the infrastructure required is on the grid and we [the IPG team] will provide the support needed, explained Tom Hinke, senior scientist and IPG team member in the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center.
Sinte Gleska University hopes this effort will spark economic growth on the reservation, which currently has an unemployment rate of more than 80 percent. If successful, this method may also be used to help other tribes with large land holdings manage their reservations.
Proposals were solicited by NASA's Office of Earth Science, which is responsible for ensuring that data, technology, and capabilities acquired and developed by NASA are exploited to the maximum extent possible for the benefit of society and the economy of the nation. To help meet this objective, the Office of Earth Science explores solutions that utilize these resources to help better understand and predict Earth's changes. The projects funded under this program will join ongoing NASA data and information projects to form the NASA Earth Science Research, Education and Applications Solution Network (Earth Science REASoN).
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NEWS ARCHIVE
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