Stennis Space Center to Develop Early Warning System for Forest Health Issues

An agreement has been reached between the USDA Forest Service and NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center for a $1-million project that will provide remote sensing technology for a national early warning system (EWS) for forest health issues. Development of the EWS will take place at Stennis.

"Across this nation, many of our forests are facing serious threats from invasive species, insects, disease and severe weather," said Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). "The development of this early warning system will help to detect, predict and rapidly respond to environmental threats on both public and private forests."

The EWS is envisioned to be a multi-source, multi-scale tool that will provide high-frequency reconnaissance and detailed location specific analysis of potential and emerging forest threats. The remote sensing project is the first of its kind solely devoted to the assessment of environmental forest threats.

The Stennis team will work collaboratively with the USDA Forest Service Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center in Asheville, N.C., as well as the Western Wildland Threat Assessment Center in Prineville, Ore.

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