ASGIS User Group Minutes
September 21, 2004
Dawn Wright – Benthic Habitat Activities overview
and future collaborations
Dawn provided a brief summary of the workshop activities
on Monday and Tuesday. The workshop material will be posted
online through her website under the samoa/ascc link. Dawn
proceeded to give a presentation on the work being completed
by Oregon State in relation to Benthic Habitat tools and products.
The products and documentation are available online. There
are also resources such as graduate thesis’ available
through her website. She informed the user group that there
will be future fieldwork through submersibles to collect ground
truthings for the benthic maps and provide fish counts.
Quickbird Imagery (http://www.digitalglobe.com)
Overview
· Launched October 18, 2001
· Highest resolution sensors available commercially
· 61-cm (2-ft) panchromatic at nadir
· 2.44-m (8-ft) multispectral at nadir
· 11 bits
· Altitude: 450 km - 98 degree, sun-synchronous inclination
· Fueled for 7 years
Specifications
Panchromatic
· 61-centimeter GSD (Ground Sample Distance) at nadir
· Black & White: 445 to 900 nanometers
Multi-Spectral
· Blue: 450 to 520 nanometers
· Green: 520 to 600 nanometers
· Red: 630 to 690 nanometers
· Near-IR: 760 to 900 nanometers
Swaths / Dates
· 16.5-km width imaging swath
Location :Tutuila Island, American Samoa
Satellite :QuickBird II
Acq. Date :November 9, 2003, December 15, 2003 & May 20,
2004
Product :Pansharpened Ortho Mosaic
Bands :1,2 and 3
Format :Tiff (16U)
3 Tiles: :tutuila_w.tif,tutuila_c.tif, tutuila_e.tif
Georeference Units : UTM 2 E012
Projection : Universal Transverse Mercator
Datum - Ellipsoid : WGS 84 (GPS)
Grid units : METRE
Availability (TIFF and IMG format)
Francesca pointed out that the spatial resolution in the
American Samoa Quickbird images might be a different resolution
than the published specs (4m versus 2.44m).
When viewing the quickbird imagery there is a few meters
difference from the positioning of the IKONOS 2001 imagery.
This matter will require future investigation and possible
reprocessing with the GCPs.
International GIS Day – November 17th 2004
The event will be held at ASCC and will require both support
through preparation of presentations, information displays,
and monetary support for items such as prizes for contests
including map making at the local schools. GIS Day falls on
the 17th of November and will be during Geography Awareness
Week. It was determined that a planning committee should be
formed and volunteers from today’s meeting include Laurie,
Fatima, Mila, Francesca, Troy, and Fa’afetai (volunteered
via ASPA representatives). The planning committee will be
meeting within the next 2 weeks to begin preparation for GIS
Day. Any additional people that were not at today’s
meeting are encouraged to join the planning committee.
New GIS Data
GIS data from the Environmental Sensitivity Atlas will soon
be available as shapefiles that conform to the SDI (naming
and metadata). Data includes information on birds, fish, hydro,
invertebrates, mammals, reptiles, nests for the Islands of
Tutuila, Manu’a, Swains, Rose Atoll. The original data
is available on CD at the GIS lab at DOC.
Adam Stein provided the user group with a storm track shapefile
and climate data (Daily Surface Temperature, Hourly Precipitation).
These are available through contacting Troy at DOC.
Palau Training update
The Palau GIS and Benchmark training is currently underway
at Palau Community College. The American Samoa students include
Pete Tuaolo from DPW, Fa’afetai Wells and Hua-Hssien
Wei from ASPA, David Alaga from ASTCA, Tali Tuinei from DOC,
and Neil Gurr from ASCC Land Grant. The training will continue
until October 8th with the students returning on October 11th.
Intro to ArcGIS & Coastal Applications using
ArcGIS
Joshua Murphy from the NOAA Coastal Services Center in Charleston,
South Carolina arrived last week and conducted 2 modules including
Introduction to ArcGIS and Coastal Applications using ArcGIS.
The training was a success in that GIS was brought to many
new agency representatives.
Conferences and Trainings attended and upcoming
ESRI International User Meeting – Laurie Williams and
Francesca Riolo attended this meeting in San Diego in early
August. Laurie provided a brief summary of the events and
resources she collected from the meeting. Items include a
handout titled “Explore Your World” and geography
education materials. Members of the user group were invited
to sign out the materials at the GIS lab at DOC. Francesca
informed the user group that she attended the technical workshops
at the conference and marine GIS applications seminars.
Francesca Riolo attended the GISMAP 2004 conference in Honolulu,
Hawaii. She met many contacts and provided a talk on her DMWR
work (see last GIS user group meeting minutes).
Laurie Williams attended the Coastal Zone Asia Pacific conference
in Brisbane, Australia. The conference material was centered
more on higher level policy than technical matters.
Troy Curry attended the ESRI training on ArcIMS for Administrators.
The course was very beneficial and provided guidance for installing
online mapping applications. Any questions or copies of the
training material can be obtained at the DOC GIS lab.
Conferences that are held in the next
year include
Pacific Island Countries GIS and Remote Sensing User Conference
• November 24 to 26, 2004 • Suva, Fiji
http://www.sopac.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=GISConference2004
GeoTools • March 7 to 10, 2005 • Myrtle Beach,
South Carolina
http://www.csc.noaa.gov/geotools/
Coastal Zone 05 • July 18 to 21, 2005 • New Orleans,
Louisiana
http://www.csc.noaa.gov/cz/
Agency Updates
FBNMS – a biological survey was recently completed
that has GPS transects. Allison Green was responsible for
collecting the data. See Nancy for more information.
HPO – David and Troy have been collecting GPS data
for WWII features that are located around the Pago Pago International
Airport. They have also collected GPS points for a recent
radio carbon dating that was completed by off-island archeologists.
DOC – DOC will be working to finish up projects including
the roads. There is only a small portion left to complete
on the Southwest side of the Island.
DPW – Vailfale reported that DPW is in the process
of converting the topomaps into a GIS format. DPW will also
begin to use ArcIMS within their office.
ASPA – Petelo reported that there are 5 new student
interns that have been working on collecting data for the
tafuna plain for ASPA. Data entry includes information on
houses and utilities (meters).
Attendees
Oregon State University – Dawn Wright, Emily Larkin
NOAA Coastal Services Center (CSC) – Josh Murphy
American Samoa Power Authority (ASPA) – Petelo Ioane
Department of Commerce (DOC) – Laurie Williams, Troy
Curry
Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources (DMWR) –
Francesca Riolo
Fagatele Bay National Maine Sanctuary (FBNMS) – Nancy
Daschbach
Land Grant – Eric Hanson, Mila Misa
NMFA – - Fatima Sauafea
Historic Preservation Office – David Herdrick
South Pacific Archaeological Consulting Services – Julie
Taomia
Department of Public Works - Vaifale Papu
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