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Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program Selects ERDAS IMAGINE For Building Desert Data Clearinghouse
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, USA - The Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program purchased ERDAS IMAGINE geographic imaging software to build a spatial data clearinghouse that can be accessed by private, state and federal natural resource managers engaged in ecosystem preservation projects in the greater Mojave and California Desert regions. With headquarters in Barstow, CA, and funding from the Department of Defense, the Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program is responsible for acquiring and providing access to geospatial data for over 50 million acres of desert lands in Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. Included in this region are Joshua Tree and Death Valley National Parks, the Mojave National Preserve and several U.S. military installations. Each is actively involved in separate environmental assessment and habitat protection projects.
They have good spatial data sets for inside their boundaries, but our mission is to encourage and facilitate an ecosystem approach to their environmental projects," said Jeff Foisy, GIS Analyst/Data Manager for the Program. "Our goal is to provide them with data sets that extend beyond their boundaries so they can take into account the ecological patterns and processes of surrounding areas."
Foisy and his staff are using ERDAS IMAGINE to process a variety of data including Landsat, SPOT, IKONOS and AVHRR imagery for the production of standardized geographic information products that will be served over the program's Web site (www.mojavedata.gov).
"When the program started in the mid-1990s, we prepared coarser scale data sets, but now we are improving the detail of our data with higher resolution imagery," said Foisy, who is employed by Charis Corp. of Hemmet, CA, the program's prime contractor.
ERDAS IMAGINE was selected for the program because it performed extremely well during an evaluation in which a 3D simulation of the Mojave Desert was created for an air space management demo. In addition, ERDAS IMAGINE is fully compatible with the ESRI Inc. line of GIS products, which the program selected to store the spatial data and serve it over the Internet.
Users of clearinghouse products include the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Department of Defense, Fish & Wildlife Service and local communities. Two of the highest profile projects now utilizing the processed data involve supporting a region-wide inventory of the endangered Desert Tortoise and assessment of regional impacts relating to expansion of the Fort Irwin Military Reservation.
In addition to building the clearinghouse database, the Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program is utilizing ERDAS IMAGINE to provide advanced imagery analysis services to some of the organizations in the region. For instance, the program has been participating in spatial modeling with the BLM, the Desert Research Institute, and Utah State University to determine how some of the BLM's planned management programs in the West Mojave Desert might be impacted by urban growth trends.
For more information about geographic imaging solutions from ERDAS, contact ERDAS: tel.: +1 404-248-9000, toll free: +1 877-GO ERDAS (463-7327), or visit www.erdas.com.
ERDAS pioneered the first PC-based geographic image processing system and for over 22 years has set the standard for multi-functional geographic imaging systems. Today, more than 35,000 installations of ERDAS software are helping organizations around the world to visualize, manipulate, analyze, measure, and integrate any type of geographic imagery and geospatial information into 2D and 3D environments.
ERDAS and ERDAS IMAGINE are registered trademarks of ERDAS, Inc. All other trademarks and brand names are the properties of their respective owners.
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