Final Report on the Refresher Course 2006 Earth Observation and Dynamic GIS Modeling of the Earth Surface for Environmental Management and Forest Conservation aimed at the Latin America region

Held from 6 to 19 November 2006 at UFLA in Lavras MG, Brazil University of Utrecht Prof. Steven M. de Jong Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA), Minais Gerais, Brazil Dr. Luis de Carvalho, Fausto Weimar Acerbi MSc International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) Prof. Freek van der Meer, Prof. Victor Jetten

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Table of Contents

1.

Introduction

3

2.

Name of the Refresher course and Field of Study

3

3.

Name of the original NFP training, programs or courses

3

4.

Recruitment

3

5.

Course Participants

4

6.

Location of the Course

4

7.

Teaching Methods Used

4

8.

What was the daily schedule

5

9.

Organizational and Logistical Aspects

6

10.

Course material

7

11.

Description of the activities in the two weeks of the Refresher Course

9

12.

Course Evaluation

11

13.

Conclusions

13

Annexes: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Flyer for course announcement Time schedule of the course Course evaluation sheet Photos of the course

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1. Introduction This report describes the activities and the achievements of the NUFFIC Refresher Course held at the Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA), Minais Gerais, Brazil. The refresher course took place from 6 to 19 November 2006. The course was organized in a good partnership between UFLA, ITC and Utrecht University. The Refresher Course was funded by NUFFIC in the Netherlands.

2. Name of the refresher course and field of study Name: Earth observation (multi-spectral & hyperspectral imaging) and dynamic GIS modeling of the earth surface for environmental management and forest conservation. Field of study: The course will be organized at the interface of nature conservation, forestry, earth sciences, remote sensing and geoinformation science.

3. Name of the original NFP training, programs or courses • • • •

IHE – Soil and Water Conservation Course, Delft. PM (Professional Masters programme)/M.Sc. programme ’earth resources and environmental geosciences (EREG)’, ITC Enschede. PM or M.Sc. programme in Natural Resources Management (NRM), ITC Enschede. Introductory Course Spatio-temporal Modelling in GIS, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University.

4. Recruitment The course was advertised on the websites of UFLA, Utrecht University and ITC and by using the ITC alumni e-mail network. A flyer (annex 1) with detailed information was prepared and mailed using our collective networks to institutes in the region notably in Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. An example of the flyer is still available on the following website: www.geo.uu.nl/refresher_course. Potential applicants were asked to fill out an application form, also made available through the website, indicating their academic background and association with the NFP program as well as their professional occupation and hence interest and affiliation with the topic.

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These forms were collected at Utrecht University, ranked and passed on to the UFLA. Final selection was based on the NUFFIC criteria, educational background of the participants, financial possibilities and done by UFLA and UU together.

5. Course participants The statistics of the course participants can be summarized as follows: Total participants: 20 NFP related participants (ITC, IHE): 16 Female 10 Brazil: 7 Columbia: 4 Bolivia: 4 Peru: 3 2 Cuba:

6. Location of the Course The course took place on the campus of the Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA), Minais Gerais, Brazil (UFLA) in the building of the Department of Forestry. In this room 20 powerful computers hooked up in a local area network and connected to a server are available together with a RGB projector. These facilities provided the possibilities of simultaneous lecturing and working on computer exercises. Modern and comfortable housing facilities were available in the centre of Lavras MG in the Semara Palace Hotel. Figure 1 shows a very high resolution satellite image of the UFLA campus acquired by the QuickBird sensor at an altitude of 700 km. The building of the Department of Forestry of UFLA, the Faculty club and the campus hotel are clearly visible on this image.

7. Teaching methods used Teaching methods used were lecture, practical computer exercises, workshops (1 day), weekend excursion (2 days), an opening and closing session and ceremony and a visit to INPE (1 day). No deviation from the original proposal.

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Figure 1 QuickBird satellite image of the UFLA campus in Lavras projected in true visible colors. The circles and numbers refer to the following locations: 1) the computer room of the Department of Forestry where the course took place: lectures and computer exercises; 2) the UFLA campus hotel where the welcome party took place on Tuesday 7 November and 3) the UFLA Faculty Club where the farewell barbecue took place on Thursday 18 November. The road leaving the image at the left hand side leads to the town of Lavras.

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8. What was the daily schedule Most of the days, lectures took place from 8:00 to 12:00 with a coffee break in the middle. Practical sessions in the afternoons were from 13:30 to 17:30. The evenings were used for social events and informal exchange of ideas and experiences in the hotel. During the workshop all time was devoted to participant presentation and interaction with the staff.

9. Organizational and Logistical Aspects Organization of the education materials and of the datasets was a joint effort of UU, ITC and UFLA. Handouts of lectures (including contributions from ITC, UFLA and UU) were collected at Utrecht and send in electronic format to UFLA. UFLA compiled cdroms with all materials and prepared printed hand outs of the lectures and of the course manuals. Social events were organized by UFLA. Local logistics were also organized by UFLA including the hotel, transport to and from the UFLA campus. The excursion to INPE was organized and led by staff of UFLA, the field excursion was a joint effort. The participant workshop on the last day was organized and hosted by UFLA but chaired by Professor de Jong.

10. Course material The course made various type of material to the participants to be used during the course and to take home for further study and referencing. The course material included: 2 academic books, remote sensing datasets, pdf files of all the powerpoint presentations used, leaflets of the institutes, a bag with the logos of the three organizing institutes, a note bloc and pencils with logos. The two provided academic remote sensing books are: - Van der Meer F.D. and S.M. de Jong, 2001, Imaging Spectrometry: Basic Principles and Prospective Applications. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 403 pp. ISBN 1-4020-0194-0. - De Jong S.M. and F.D. van der Meer, 2004, Remote Sensing Image Analysis: Including the Spatial Domain. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 295 pp. ISBN 1-4020-2559-9. And the manual of the exercises:

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- De Jong S.M., F.D. van der Meer, L.M. T. de Carvalho, F.W. Acerbi Junior, V.G. Jetten, H.M.A. van der Werff, 2006, Exercises Refresher Course Earth Observation & Dynamic GIS Modelling of the Earth Surface for Environmental Management and Forest Conservation, Lavras 2006. The CD rom contained next to the pdf files of the powerpoint presentation the hyperspectral datasets and GIS datasets used in the course. The participants carried this material home and are able to repeat the exercises or to work on the exercises more exhaustively.

11. Description of the activities in the two weeks of the Refresher Course The course was offered along the lines proposed. The course consisted of the following components: opening session, introduction to the basics of earth observation, an overview of operational earth observation systems, introduction to the basics of mineral, vegetation and soil spectra, an overview of hyperspectral image processing, an overview of spatial methods of image processing and an introduction into the combined spectral-spatial processing of imagery. In the second week the course consisted of these components: an overview of land degradation processes and their impact on society, the concepts of environmental modeling in a Geographical Information System (GIS), the theory behind soil erosion processes, spatio-dynamic of soil erosion processes and the integrated use of GIS and earth observation for soil erosion modeling. The last day of the course a workshop was organized where 6 of the course participants presented their own daily work and how they are using, or are planning on using GIS and remote sensing in that. 11.1 First week The first week of the refresher course was devoted to applied earth observation with an emphasis on hyperspectral remote sensing. Applications of earth observation were oriented towards vegetation, crop, soil and mineral mapping and monitoring. Participants were introduced in methods how crops, vegetation, soils and rocks can be been classified and what methods exist to determine their properties on the basis of remote sensing imagery. The course was given as a mixture of about 50/50 of lecturing and of computer hands-on exercises. At first image analysis methods were presented and discussed that use mainly spectral information captured by the imagery. These methods include Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM), Spectral Mixture Analysis (SMA) or unmixing and Red Edge Position (REP) algorithms. Furthermore, attention was paid to field instruments for collecting high resolution spectra of crops, vegetation, soils and rocks and to methods how accurate spectra must be measured outside. Next, in the second half of the first week emphasis was put on methods using both spectral and spatial information captured by the images for object classification and for

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object properties extraction. These methods include rotating template matching (RTM), wavelet analysis and data fusion techniques. Images that were used for these exercises were selected from various places over the world. Selection criteria for these images were based on how well these datasets would illustrate the working methods of the image analysis method and their outcome. Example images were coming from the Flevopolders in The Netherlands, from the Peyne area in southern France, from the Rodalquiar area in southern Spain and from the surroundings of the UFLA University in Lavras where partly-logged forests are found. The latter image covered the area where the weekend excursion and the field work were carried out on during the course. 11.2 Weekend excursions In the weekend, on Saturday, we visited the quartzite outcrops and open mining areas of quartzite near the village of São Tomé das Letras. This area is located approximately 70 km west of Lavras. The open mines of quartzite and the outcrops show up as very bright areas in the satellite images. The poor sandstone formation and the poor soils developing in these formations do not support the natural vegetation very well resulting in open and exposed areas of these rocks. It was very unfortunate that the weather was extremely bad on this excursion day hampering the views over the area and making it almost impossible to show maps and satellite images to the group outside. In spite these poor weather conditions we were able to enter a few quarries, to look at the weathering processes of the quartzite rock formations and to see the coloring of the quartzite into red, brownish and yellow colors due to the presence of iron and/or manganese. The excursion on Sunday took the group to the area east of Lavras towards the city of Tiradentes. The area around Tiradentes is severely affected by soil erosion due to the removal of the natural vegetation cover of Cerrada and open forests and due to overgrazing. We visited a number of badland areas and gully complexes, investigated the soil profiles and soil surfaces and looked at the devastating consequences of soil erosion processes. During the second part of the day we visited the tourist town of Tiradentes. We returned to Lavras around 19.00hr. 11.3 Second week On Monday the group visited Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espacias (INPE), the Brazilian Aerospace Establishment based in São José dos Campos. It was a long drive to INPE of approximately 5 hours and we only returned very late in the evening at Lavras. We were welcomed at INPE by Dr Flavio J. Ponzoni. Dr Ponzoni gave an overview of INPE activities in his presentations and explained the importance of quantitative methods in remote sensing. After his presentation we visited the laboratory facilities of INPE. Dr Ponzoni showed the portable field spectrometers and how they are used in the laboratory and in the field to collect accurate spectra of objects.

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The remainder of the second week of the course was devoted to land degradation processes, to spatio-dynamic modeling of these unfavorable land degradation processes and how remote sensing can be used to monitor these processes and collect input data for the simulation models. The lectures started by providing an overview of land degradation processes such as soil erosion, flooding, mass movements and salinization, and their most important causes. Next, the basic concepts of environmental modeling using a spatiodynamic Geographic Information System were presented. Hands on exercises made the course participants familiar with the software and with the concepts of environmental modeling. On Wednesday the theory and concepts behind the soil erosion process were explained. Next, the participants built their own spatio dynamic erosion model in the PCRaster software. They worked out a number of computer simulation scenarios investigating the effects of soil steepness, deforestation and land management measures on the total erosion. On Thursday in the second week Dr Joao Marques gave a tour over the UFLA campus. We visited the soil physical and chemical laboratory, the greenhouses, the lysimeters and the computer rooms. In the computer room an interesting presentation was given by Dr Helena Ramos Alvez about one of their research projects to map coffee areas, to determine land suitability for coffee and to assess coffee yields in western Minas Gerais. At the last day of the second week a workshop was organized where 6 of the course participants presented their own daily work and how they are using, or are planning on using GIS and remote sensing in that. The workshop presentations comprised: • E.G. Couto, Spatial Variability of Soil Physical Attributes used for Soil Mapping in the Southern Amazon; • M.A. Torrico, Natural Hazards and Risk Analysis for the Cochabamba Project. • H. Palacios, Research in Remote Sensing Applications in Pontificial Catholic University of Lima. • R. Vargar Rojas, Somalia Land and Water Information System. • H. Juarez, Adding value to biodiversity & GIS in urban and periurban areas of Lima. • J.C. Ledezma, Modelling Conservation Status in Bolivia. • M. Flores, Land use Planning in Bolivia using GIS. • S. Beskow (UFLA), Applications of PCRaster in Soil Erosion Modelling in Minas Gerais. Each of the presentations was followed by 5 minutes for discussion and questioning. The workshop proved very useful for informing the course participants about their daily activities and yielded a good basis for further networking of the participants.

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12. Course Evaluation At the end of the course the participants were requested to fill the questionnaire as presented in the annex. The results of the evaluation are given below. Results of the Participant Evaluation 0f the Refresher Course Earth Observation & Dynamic GIS modeling 6-17 November 2006 UFLA, Lavras MG Brazil Encircle your answer. Please rate your opinion on a scale from 1 to 5: 1 = very bad, 3 = OK, 5 = very good. Please add comments on a separate sheet (we are of course especially interested if your rate is less than 3). Question 1 How did you appreciate the course with regard to the:

1 = very bad, 3 = OK, 5 = very good 1

a)

2

3

Build-up of the course (Was it logical?)

b) Contents (Topics that were treated) c) Material provided (hand-outs, digital documentation, software, data)

4

5

average

6x4

15x5

4,71

2x4

19x5

4,90

5x4

16x5

4,76

5x4

16x5

4,76

d) Balance lecturing / exercises e) Balance between “cookbook” exercises and more open exercises. f) Relevance to your daily work and responsibilities.

2x3

12x4

6x5

4,00

3x3

6x4

12x5

4,43

g)

1x3

7x4

13x5

4,57

3

4

5

average

1x4

20x5

4,95

1x3

2x4

18x5

4,81

1x3

8x4

12x5

4,52

1x3

3x4

17x5

4,76

7x4

14x5

4,67

4x4

15x5

4,62

Applicability to your Institution

Question 2 How would you qualify the instructors with regard to?

1 h) Their knowledge of the subjects taught. i) Clarity of their presentations (explaining theory). j) Clarity of their instructions (explaining the exercises). k) Their answers to questions from you (or fellow course participants) l) m)

2

Design of the course The choice of the software

2x3

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Question 3 Are there any topics or concepts treated in this course that their purpose remains unclear to you? • Template topic • The rotation-variant template matching • The course had an emphasis on geology and forestry; therefore you needed to know the basic concepts to remark more from the initial part Question 4 Were there any topics you have missed in this course that should have been treated in your opinion? • Practical part of hyperspectral imagery processing for forest • Fieldwork should be more emphasized • More information about the practical availability and costs of hyperspectral images • Maybe GIS related to land degradation • Acquisition of raw information • Topics treated by Freek van der Meer • Logistic matter was confused Question 5 How would you rate the course? • Very good: 15x • Excellent 3x • Very good to excellent 1x • 100% • 4,3/5 Question 6 In case of a future refresher course, what topics you consider appropriate? • Use of multi satellite analysis for forest recognition • Importance of calibration and transformation of radiometric data • Integration of multiple information source • Assessment of land degradation indicator using remote sensing and GIS combined with fieldwork measurements: 3x • Web maps • Natural hazards 2x • More cases studies • Spatial data infrastructure and data management for earth sciences • The state of art and last researches in digital soil mapping 2x • Agricultural /vegetation automatic classification options/alternatives • Modelling land evaluation • Land use changing modelling • Water and climate change 4x • Environmental services • Global processes modeling, ecosystems, climate etc. • Modelling in GIS for risks and hazards associated to soil and urban erosion in …. • More discussion about how to extract useful information from easily obtainable images, as hyperspectral images are quite less common • Course about PCRaster • Mineral deposits

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• • • • •

Chosen of satellite images for different topics A refresh in geology Data acquisition GIS applications mainly in vegetation, web maps, natural hazards etc. Crop modelling in a GIS basis

13. Conclusions: The course was very successful. The participants have gained insight in the scientific and methodological advances made in earth observation and in spatial dynamic modeling with GIS. The hands-on exercises also provided them with some own experiences of working with these types of data. Their enthusiasm for these new possibilities was impressive. Furthermore, a fruitful basis for future co-operation between the LatinAmerican participants is created. A number of the participants expressed their interest for further studies in The Netherlands. We are grateful to NUFFIC for providing the possibilities for these refresher courses.

Annex: 1. Announcement Leaflet of the course 2. Program & Time Schedule of the Course 3. Course Evaluation Sheet 4. Pictures giving an impression of the course activities

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Annex 1 Course Announcement Leaflet

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Annex 2 Time schedule of the course Week 1: Day Mon 6

Time 8.30-10.30 10.00-12.30

13.40-15.30

Tue 7

Wed 8

Thu 9

Fri 10

Sat 11 Sun 12

15.45-17.30 8.30-10.30

10.30-12.30 13.30-15.15 15.30-17.30 8.30-10.30 10.45-12.30 13.30-15.00 15.15-17.30 8.30-10.30 10.45-12.30 13.30-15.00 15.15-17.30 8.30-10.30 10.30-12.30 13.40-15.30 15.45-17.30 8.30-17.30 8.30-13.30 (?)

Topic Registration Opening Session, Intro course PR talk UFLA, UU and ITC L : Refresher Earth Observation L : Refresher Earth Observation 2 L: Refresher EO Systems Exc 1: Feature finding, Cont removal L: Basic Mineral Spectra L: Basics on vegetation L: Basics on soil reflectance Exc 2: Endmember selection L: Processing of Hyperspectral data (2 delen) Exc 2: cont’d L: Spectroscopy in practice: minerals, soil conditions L: intro to the exercise Exc 3: Soil abundance mapping L: Field spectral measurements Exc 4: Soil degradation mapping L: Spatial domain methods in RS Exc: template L: spatial domain cont’d Exc: cont’d L: Forest management & RS Exc 5: Red edge mapping L: Wavelet analysis of images Exc 6: Feature extraction of images with wavelets Field excursion Field excursion

Lecturer SdJ, SdJ, FM, LdC SdJ SdJ FM SdJ, FM FM SdJ SdJ FM & SdJ FM FM & SdJ FM, SdJ SdJ SdJ, FM FM SdJ, VJ, FM SdJ, M FvdM, SdJ LdC SdJ, FM LdC LdC LdC, SdJ LdC, SdJ

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Annex 2 Cont’d: Time schedule of the course Week 2: Day Mon 13 Tue 14

Wed 15

Thu 16

Time 8.30-17.30 8.30-10.30 10.30-12.30 13.30-15.15 15.30-17.30 8.30-10.30 10.45-12.30 13.30-15.00 15.15-17.30 8.30-10.30 13.30-15.00

Fri 17

8.30-15.00

15.00-16.00

Topic Excursion & Visit to INPE L: Arid land degradation L: Concepts of environmental modelling L: Introduction to PCRaster Dynamic Modelling Exc: Hands on exercise dynamic modeling Exc: Hands on exercise dynamic modeling L: soil erosion processes L:The Morgan, Morgan and Finney Model Exc: MMF model into PCRaster Exc: Cont’d Exc: Cont’d L: integration of RS and GIS for erosion models Exc: Interception estimates using RS Exc: cont’d Participants presentation Evaluation of the course (forms) About their RS and GIS activities Farewell drinks & closing ceremony

Lecturer Dr. Flavio J. Ponzoni SdJ SdJ VJ VJ SdJ VJ SdJ VJ VJ, SdJ VJ VJ, SdJ SdJ, VJ

All

All

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Annex 3 Course Evaluation Sheet

Evaluation sheet Refresher Course Earth Observation & Dynamic GIS modelling 6-17 November 2006 UFLA, Lavras MG Brazil Encircle your answer. Please rate your opinion on a scale from 1 to 5: 1 = very bad, 3 = OK, 5 = very good. Please add comments on a separate sheet (we are of course especially interested if your rate is less than 3). Question 1 How did you appreciate the course with regard to the: a)

Build-up of the course (Was it logical?)

b) Contents (Topics that were treated) c)

Material provided (hand-outs, digital documentation, software, data)

d) Balance lecturing / exercises

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

e)

Balance between “cookbook” exercises and more open exercises.

1

2

3

4

5

f)

Relevance to your daily work and responsibilities.

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

h) Their knowledge of the subjects taught.

1

2

3

4

5

i)

Clarity of their presentations (explaining theory).

1

2

3

4

5

j)

Clarity of their instructions (explaining the exercises).

1

2

3

4

5

k) Their answers to questions from you (or fellow course participants)

1

2

3

4

5

l)

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

g) Applicability to your Institution Question 2 How would you qualify the instructors with regard to?

Design of the course

m) The choice of the software

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Annex 3 Cont’d: Course Evaluation Sheet Question 3 Are there any topics or concepts treated in this course that their purpose remains unclear to you? Question 4 Were there any topics you have missed in this course that should have been treated in your opinion? Question 5 How would you rate the course?

Question 6 In case of a future refresher course, what topics you consider appropriate?

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Annex 4: Photos of the Course

Dr L.M.T. de Carvalho lecturing in the UFLA computer room.

Prof. F.D. van der Meer lecturing in the UFLA computer room.

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Prof. V.G. Jetten lecturing in the UFLA computer room.

Prof. S.M. de Jong during the field excursion explaining about ‘badlands’.

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Hands-on Computer exercises on image processing during the NUFFIC RF Course.

All NUFFIC Refresher Course Participants in front of the UFLA Building

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Dr L.M.T. de Carvalho showing an ASTER satellite image in the bus during the field excursion.

Mr Hildebrando Palacios presenting during the participants workshop.

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Dr Flavio Ponzoni explaining the use of a portable field spectrometer during our visit to INPE.

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