USA

Whether you want to start growing your own food, join a community garden or find locally owned and grown food, an Ypsilanti-based nonprofit wants to help. The nonprofit Growing Hope recently launched an interactive map of community gardens, farms, locally owned grocery stores, food pantries and places to borrow or get free seeds, tools and other growing ...

At Goddard Space Flight Center, the GSFC Data Science Group has completed the testing for their SatVision Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA) Foundation Model, a geospatial foundation model for coarse-resolution all-sky remote sensing imagery. The team, comprised of Mark Carroll, Caleb Spradlin, Jordan Caraballo-Vega, Jian Li, Jie Gong, and Paul Montesano, has now released their model for wide ...

The Nature Conservancy and UC Santa Barbara release the first comprehensive maps of coconut agriculture, and the subsequent loss of native forests, on atolls throughout the tropical Pacific. Over the last 200 years, this pervasive land cover change has profoundly altered ecosystems and hydrologic resources, potentially affecting atoll communities’ resilience to climate change and other environmental ...

Arizona State University and St. Mary’s Food Bank (SMFB) have joined forces to create an interactive data dashboard that tracks and maps food insecurity rates across Arizona. This innovative tool aims to analyze patterns, provide critical insights and optimize resource allocation to address disparities in food access. By combining ASU’s research expertise with SMFB’s decades of community ...

The Sun’ll come out tomorrow, and you no longer have to bet your bottom dollar to be sure of it. Google’s DeepMind team released its latest weather prediction model this week, which outperforms a leading traditional weather prediction model across the vast majority of tests put before it. The generative AI model is dubbed GenCast, and it ...

NASA, IBM, and Forschungszentrum Jülich have released an expanded version of the open-source Prithvi Geospatial artificial intelligence (AI) foundation model to support a broader range of geographical applications. Now, with the inclusion of global data, the foundation model can support tracking changes in land use, monitoring disasters, and predicting crop yields worldwide.  The Prithvi Geospatial foundation model, ...

The relationships between a population of people, their health outcomes, and their local contexts can be very complex. Nevertheless, developing an understanding of these population dynamics can be crucial for addressing complex social problems, such as disease, economic security, disaster response, and much more. Despite the importance, however, accurate predictions for these population dynamics have been elusive ...

According to the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the updated space-related export controls will promote the USA’s innovation and technology leadership while protecting its national security and foreign policy interests. The relaxed restrictions also apply to the United Kingdom and Canada. Specifically, the new ruling removes licensing requirements for items involving ...

Approximately 71 to 95 million people in the Lower 48 states—more than 20% of the country’s population—may rely on groundwater that contains detectable concentrations of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, for their drinking water supplies. These findings are according to a U.S Geological Survey study published in the journal Science. The predictive ...

Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela, assistant professor of environmental studies, and a team of Colombian researchers have introduced a transformative approach to mapping bird species distribution across Colombia, harnessing community science data and innovative modeling techniques. Their latest study, published with open access in the journal Diversity and Distributions, presents high-resolution range and Area of Habitat (AOH) maps ...

Tesla, Mobileye, Alibaba, and Didi have denied speculation that they have been involved in conducting illegal map-making activities after China’s top security agency said it found an incident of spying in which a foreign enterprise used a local company to collect sensitive map data. The unidentified international firm illegally conducted geographic mapping activities in the ...

As the world’s largest rice exporter and a crucial player in global food security, India has made impressive strides in agricultural productivity since the Green Revolution. However, a significant gap remains between the rice yields that farmers currently achieve and what they could potentially produce. A recent study published in Nature Communications titled “Context-dependent agricultural ...

For nearly a century, two dams on the Elwha River blocked the natural flow of sediment and wood, leading to a highly altered river environment. Removal of the dams unleashed large quantities of sediment and wood that had been trapped behind the reservoirs. This debris was carried downstream, reshaping the river’s course and impacting its ...

A new data platform from CTrees, REDD+AI, is the first to measure forest degradation from logging, fire, and road construction across all tropical forests. Enabled by artificial intelligence and advanced satellite data, the system detects change in every 5-meter area of tropical forests worldwide. Forest degradation refers to activities that cause loss of trees, carbon, ...

In recent years, environmental justice researchers have uncovered wide disparities in exposure to toxic pollutants between people living in low-income neighborhoods and those living in wealthier communities. Much of the research has focused on air pollution emitted from factories, along with diesel truck and automobile exhaust from highways—which are generally situated far from high-income neighborhoods. ...

Learn how to use the City’s emergency map to quickly see how neighborhoods, including your own, may be directed to evacuate, shelter in place, or take other protective action. When possible, the City will also use the map to identify evacuation routes, road closures, shelters, or other critical information to guide you to your next ...

The U.S. Geological Survey has released a new nationwide landslide susceptibility map that indicates nearly 44% of the U.S. could potentially experience landslide activity. The new assessment provides a highly detailed, county-by-county picture of where these damaging, disruptive and potentially deadly geologic hazards are more likely as well as areas where landslide hazards are negligible. ...

Warm water in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico can fuel powerful hurricanes, but how destructive a storm becomes isn’t just about the climate and weather – it also depends on the people and property in harm’s way. In many coastal cities, fast population growth has left more people living in areas at high ...

The Oklahoma City Office of Sustainability’s first deep dive into digital mapping showed just how important spatial awareness can be—especially when it comes to extreme summer heat. For context, this state capital is similar in size to New York City at 621 square miles. But its population of about 750,000 is more spread out than ...

Uzma Berhad has unveiled its satellite project with UzmaSAT-1 a state-of-the-art Earth Observation satellite developed through a collaboration between Uzma and Satellogic. The group said the partnership aims to evolve the landscape of satellite imagery capabilities and geospatial services in Southeast Asia by leveraging access to high-temporal and high-resolution satellite imagery from the largest commercial ...

A nearly 20-year effort to map the electrical properties of Earth’s crust and mantle across the contiguous United States, viewed as critical to protecting the electrical grid during extreme solar storms and against damage from electromagnetic pulses used as weapons, is now complete. The 3-D geoelectric map produced by researchers provides vital information to scientists, ...

Um estudo realizado com a participação de um docente da Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB) aponta que entre os anos de 2001 e 2019, houve uma perda contínua de habitat vital no rio Mobile-Tensaw do Alabama nos Estados Unidos. Os dados utilizados no estudo foram obtidos por meio de sensoriamento remoto, modelagem geoespacial e análises ...

There is a lot of concern about microplastics, as they have been found just about everywhere- from isolated Rocky Mountain lakes to the deepest part of the ocean, as well as in our own bodies. When we think about microplastics, most people think about broken down bits of larger plastic items. However, the origin of ...

A new mapping tool from North Carolina State University uses machine learning and open-source satellite imagery to model flooding in urban environments. The new model could create maps that predict urban area flooding, which traditionally have not been accessible to urban planners. This could help identify potentially flood-prone areas in urban settings, helping officials make ...

The U.S. Space Force aims to better pinpoint the location of Earth’s true center using lasers on GPS satellites slated to launch in 2025. A set of laser retroreflector arrays, or LRAs, will be installed onto two GPS III satellites, called SV9 and SV10, as part of NASA’s Space Geodesy Program space sensor network. The ...

Crust and lithospheric mantle—the thinnest and thickest layers of the Earth’s lithosphere—and a wide range of dynamic processes that deform them can be studied by using high precision geodetic data taken directly from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). GNSS data and data products can measure and help the user understand such factors as the Earth’s ...

As the planet continues to warm due to human-driven climate change, accurate computer climate models will be key in helping illuminate exactly how the climate will continue to be altered in the years ahead. In a study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, a team led by researchers from the UC Irvine Department ...

Nearly 34 million people across 65 US cities — roughly one in 10 Americans — live in a place where the built environment makes temperatures feel at least 8 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it would without that urban sprawl. That’s according to a new study by the nonprofit Climate Central, which mapped the impact of ...

Hurricane Beryl had pummeled Southeast Texas on Monday, leaving millions in the Houston area without power. But with technical issues plaguing the tracker for the city’s main energy provider, there was no way to check the status of power outages — or find the still-lit pockets where residents could buy food, gas and other necessities. ...

Most people interact with maps regularly, for example, when they’re trying to get from point A to point B, track the weather or plan a trip. But, beyond those daily activities, maps are also increasingly being combined with artificial intelligence to create powerful tools for urban modeling, navigation systems, natural hazard forecasting and response, climate ...