NASA Earth science data are vital components of investigations into biological diversity, species distribution, and ecological conservation.
NASA collaborates with other federal entities and international space organizations, including NOAA, USGS, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), and the European Space Agency (ESA), to provide data used in understanding a number of biological phenomena, including vegetation characteristics and change, biodiversity, the impacts of human activities on the natural environment, and habitat suitability. Some of these phenomena can be detected directly through remote Earth observation. For instance, forest loss can be tracked by comparing satellite imagery across time, and the distribution of ecosystems and species can directly be detected by the color signatures that characterize them. Species-specific detection is challenging with multispectral data due to the coarse spatial resolution; however, with hyperspectral data (having a high spectral resolution), the unique spectral fingerprint each species has can provide species-specific information for vegetation mapping and individual species identification.
vegetation characteristics, spectroscopy, human impacts, species distribution, species occurrence, land surface characteristics, land cover dynamics, land surface temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, snow cover, topography, sea surface temperature/salinity, image, environmental