SOARS (1): SCIENTIFIC OUTREACH AND APPLICATIONS USING REMOTE SENSING 2003 - A COMMUNITY, EDUCATION, AND GOVERNMENT COLLABORATION ON WATERSHED MAPPING IN THE CUYAHOGA RIVER WATERSHED, NE OHIO

The SOARS (Scientific Outreach and Applications using Remote Sensing) program was established for the benefit of rising undergraduate seniors and graduate students pursuing degrees in remote sensing, GIS, and related disciplines. The program, in its second year, was developed by OhioView, a grassroots organization formed in 1996 to make satellite data more accessible to educators, industry and the public. The Cuyahoga River RAP, a major sponsor, has conducted or sponsored technical research regarding the condition of the Cuyahoga River over the past 14 years. As part of their most recent work program, GIS and satellite mapping is being utilized to create tributary-based watershed maps that are intended for presentation and distribution to local officials and public interest groups. The 2003 SOARS program, also sponsored by NASA Glenn, completed several projects that relate to watershed issues in the Cuyahoga River Watershed that use remote sensing and GIS. These projects fit into three broad categories: (1) watershed delineation from digital elevation models; (2) landcover mapping from Landsat data; and (3) the creation of an online interactive geospatial database. The geospatial technologies used in each of these project areas are truly innovative in that they are not only fundamental to undertaking the watershed research at a variety of levels, but they are, in addition, a powerful tool for outreaching to the community. We have created a database at the watershed and sub-watershed level that is web-friendly to several levels of users. That is, users can download raw datafiles (eg. shp, tif, dlg), download and print pre-created pdf maps of specific data layers, or perform simple GIS analyses over the internet via ArcIMS. By providing decision makers and concerned citizens easy access to the data files we will greatly increase the overall impact of the SOARS 2003 program.