THE GEOGRAPHY OF CHANGE ALONG THE LEWIS AND CLARK TRAIL: UTILIZING DISTRIBUTED GEOSPATIAL SYSTEMS AS A MEANS OF UNDERSTANDING

The Lewis and Clark Bicentennial commemoration provides an opportunity for interdisciplinary research into the geography of change along the Lewis and Clark trail. Extending across North America as a discrete transect through a continental historical geography, the Lewis and Clark trail serves as a biological baseline upon which modern scholars can compare contemporary landscape conditions. Simultaneously, it is now possible through advances in geospatial information technology (IT) to build Web-based systems that allow for the effective sharing of geographical information among Lewis and Clark scholars and researchers. Designed as a collaborative and organic Web system, one such project, “The Lewis and Clark Geosystem,” is currently under development by multiple public and private sector organizations. Focusing upon landscape visualization, database mining, and descriptive illustrations of environmental change, the Lewis and Clark Geosystem functions as a distributed GIS network. The purpose of the Lewis and Clark Geosystem is to link significant geospatial databases (nodes) across the Internet and provide the end user with a latticework of geospatial resources, upon which they can form analytical perspectives of the various trail landscapes. The Lewis and Clark Geosystem is compatible with and supportive of related federal geospatial portals such as the USGS National Map and the recently launched Geospatial One-Stop initiative. Providing spatio-temporal perspectives of landscape change for specific locations along the trail, the Lewis and Clark Geosystem incorporates modern, georeferenced remotely sensed data (Landsat 7 ETM+, Landsat 5 TM, MODIS, SRTM, ASTER) with historical aerial photography, cartography and other geographical data resources across multiple scales. The Lewis and Clark Geosystem provides an ideal method for communicating science along the Lewis and Clark trail and represents significant, cumulative advancements in geospatial information technology.