New NAIP imagery available for CA!

New Bay Bridge construction as seen in the 2009 NAIP imagery

Two great new resources from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) are now available for the State of California, and can be download via Cal-Atlas:

2009 Natural Color Imagery: Divided into counties, natural color imagery is now available in MrSid Format.  These images were acquired in the summer of 2009.

2005 Color Infrared Imagery: Divided into quarter-quads, color infrared image tiles from the 2005 dataset are now available for the entire state in jpeg2000 format. 

Michael Byrne, California’s Geographic Information Officer, estimates that the color infrared imagery from the 2009 dataset will be available in 6-7 months.

Mapping wetlands: the GlobWetland project

A bit late, but a good source of wetland mapping information from the the GlobWetland Symposium: Looking Lake Bogoria in Kenya, Landsatat wetlands from space.  The GlobWetland project was launched in 2003 with the aim of developing and demonstrating earth observation-based information services to support wetland managers and national authorities worldwide in responding to the requirements agreed under the Convention. The project involved 50 different wetlands in 21 countries and relied on the direct collaboration of several regional, national and local conservation authorities and wetland managers. It has now produced a number of standardised information products (e.g. land use and land cover maps, change-detection maps, water cycle regime maps and others) validated over the 50 selected sites by the users themselves, consolidated methods and guidelines for the users to continue the work after the project lifetime.

The GlobWetland Symposium was held in October 2006 in Frascati, Italy to inform the general public and policy makers of the importance of wetlands and to promote their conservation and protection worldwide. The papers in this special issue highlight the major points and recommendations derived from the Symposium while the final conclusions provide a basis for initiating new actions within the ESA in support of the EO requirements of the Ramsar Convention and the wetlands community.

The special issue in Journal of Environmental Management from the conference has many interesting papers on wetlands mapping.