This post should have gone out several days ago, but I figure that I will just wrap it into Wednesdays post. I am aware that it is Thursday. As usual I do not really have an excuse for being so late.
I thought I would wrap up my thoughts on the Pecos conference and then review one article today. Pecos was pretty good overall. I would have liked to have seen more presentations in the technology side. I would have liked to have heard more detail regarding historical archaeology. And I would have really liked to have seen more graduate and undergraduate work. Pecos provides a great practice arena for young professionals. I thought about making a poster just to get the extra practice. Another thing about Pecos is that there are a lot of avocational archaeologists in attendance. This is not a bad thing overall. I like that so many people want to get involved in archaeology and that they spending their retirement helping bring the cultural history of this region to the public. I think the problem is that some presenters pander to the avocational crowd instead of bringing meaningful data. On the other hand it costs $45 and you get to camp for three days. Not a bad way to spend a conference. I have spoken several times about federally supported remote sensing programs. This article details the potential loss of funding for the aging Landsat program. The article also discusses the potential for other funding sources. I think that it is a serious misstep for the government to reduce or eliminate the funding of this program. The data that is collected provides significant defensive information, but more than that it provides a significant resource into national private sector concerns. Agriculture, climate change, urban development, health care, etc. are all private sector industries that rely on this data. I do not know that a private company could provide the same level of consistency and quality that the USGS and NASA have. It is critical that we maintain the resource. The Landsat program is almost 40 years old and there are very few plans in effect to keep up with the aging systems. Landsat 8 only has a mission life of 5 years. Sure, it will probably last longer like all of the rest, but we need to get on this now or those we will have to start playing catch up. The science research using remote sensing is one of the things that the U.S. does well. We are excellent at it, but we will risk loosing that potential to other nations if we do not concentrate o
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AuthorI am a GIS professional in Walla Walla, WA. I use this blog to force myself to really read through all of the GIS news that I get in my inbox. It also helps me practice writing. Archives
January 2015
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