PE&RS September 2004

Cover Image

The cover image was provided by ESRI and shows a 3D view of the San Bernardino, California, foothills that were affected during the for-est fires in autumn 2003. In sup-port of the Mountain Area Safety Task Force, ESRI produced this map showing the perimeter of the Old Fire, damaged houses, and the location of evacuation sites, road closures, sheriff substations, and hospitals. Digital Globe’s satellite data and ArcGIS StreetMap data were draped over a 3D view, and through the use of ArcGIS 3D Analyst, operations staff was able to quickly assess the area, understand the extent of the fire, and identify areas that might be in jeopardy. Identifying the terrain type was critical in deciding where to deploy firefighters. Incident commanders were able to make decisions about locating firebreaks, deploying resources, selecting alternate staging areas,and establishing a plan of attack without having to spend precious hours in the field to assess the viability of a location. Also important was the ability to see the locations of the closest medical care facilities in relation-ship to the fire to plan evacuation routes. The fire damage assessment map was also used to brief emergency response agencies, media, and high-level state officials.For more information, visit www.esri.com/arcgis, or e-mailinfo@esri.com

Highlight Article

997 GIS Analysis and Remote Sensing Support Southern California Wildfire Response —Vast Array of Applications Give Numerous Agencies the Benefit of Spatial Analysis, High-Powered Visualization
Jesse Theodore

1001 Geospatial Informatics for Management of a New Forest Disease: Sudden Oak Death
Maggi Kelly, Karin Tuxen, and Faith Kearns

Columns & Updates
1009 Grids & Datums — Federal Islamic Republic of The Comores
1011 Headquarters News — ASPRS Announces the Kenneth J. Osborn Memorial Scholarship
1013 Industry News

Peer-Reviewed Articles

1021 Satellite Navigation Parameter-assisted Orthorectification for Over 60° N Latitude Satellite Imagery
Guoqing Zhou and K. Jezek

A presentation of a satellite navigation parameters-assisted orthorectification method for the generation of a seamless, full-coverage mosaic of the Greenland ice sheet using the over 60? N latitude.

1031 Correction of Positional Errors and Geometric Distortions in Topographic Maps and DEMs Using Rigorous SAR Simulation Technique
Hongxing Liu, Zhiyuan Zhao, and Kenneth C. Jezek

A rigorous SAR simulation technique offered for correcting positional errors and geometric distortions in topographic maps and their derived DEMs.

1043 Urban Land Cover Change Analysis in Central Puget Sound
Marina Alberti, Robin Weeks, and Stefan Coe

A methodology was developed to interpret and assess land cover change between 1991 and 1999 in Central Puget Sound, WA at several scales (landscape, sub-basins, and 90m grid window) relevant to regional and local decision makers.

1053 Spectral Mixture Analysis of the Urban Landscape in Indianapolis City with Landsat ETM+ Imagery
Dengsheng Lu and Qihao Weng

Spectral mixture analysis is used to characterize the urban land-use and land-cover patterns and to improve classification accuracy.

1063 Tree Cover Discrimination in Panchromatic Aerial Imagery of Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands
Jesse Jacob Anderson and Neil Cobb

Common techniques for classification of aerial photographs are evaluated and a new method to define tree area in black and white aerial photographs is described and assessed for accuracy versus field data.

1069 Reflectance Modeling of Snow-Covered Forests in Hilly Terrain
Dagrun Vikhamar, Rune Solberg, and Klaus Seidel

Reflectance variability of snow-covered forests is analyzed by modeling the radiometric terrain effects for spectral land cover types within a pixel for enhanced snow-cover mapping.

1081 Predicting Sea floor Facies from Multibeam Bathymetry and Backscatter Data
Peter Dartnell and James V. Gardner

A technique is described that predicts the distribution of sea floor facies within central Santa Monica Bay, California using supervised and hierarchical decision tree classifications of multibeam bathymetry and acoustic backscatter data.

Announcements
1020 ASPRS 2005 Annual Conference — Geospatial Goes Global: From Your Neighborhood to the Whole Planet

Departments
1011 New Member List
1017 Who’s Who in ASPRS
1018 Sustaining Members
1020 Advertiser Index
1030 Instructions to Authors
1080 Forthcoming Articles
1092 Calendar
1093 Classifieds
1095 Bookstore
1100 Professional Directory
1103 Membership Application

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