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  3. NEON’s Airborne Remote Sensing Flight Season Announced for 2020

NEON’s Airborne Remote Sensing Flight Season Announced for 2020

March 4, 2020

Twin otter plane

Interested in planning a ground sampling project in coordination with one of our airborne remote sensing surveys? The 2020 NEON flight schedule is now available. Two aircraft will be deployed June through September to collect data over 20 terrestrial and 11 aquatic sites, covering 9 of the 20 NEON domains.

Each NEON Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) payload consists of an imaging spectrometer, a discrete and waveform light detection and ranging (LIDAR) instrument and a high-resolution digital camera. These instruments are mounted in a DeHavilland DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft that flies at a nominal altitude of 1000m above ground level (AGL) at a speed of 100 knots over NEON field sites. The flight parameters enable meter-scale spectroscopy, decimeter-scale photography, and ~4 points-per-meter discreet and waveform lidar measurements.

AOP surveys are synchronized with data collected on the ground at each site by NEON field staff. This allows scientists to develop a more comprehensive picture of how different observations scale and how measurements taken from airborne remote sensing instruments correlate with observations made on the ground. Raw data obtained from flights are processed and made available via the NEON data portal ~60 days after collection.

Airborne data collection instrumentation

Airborne instrumentation, left: twin otter plane, middle: imaging spectrometer, right: payload inside of the twin otter

 

 

Measurements obtained from the AOPs provide a range of physical, biological and biochemical data products available both as flightlines and mosaics, including:

  • Topography (elevation, slope and aspect)
  • Canopy chemistry (lignin, nitrogen, water content, xanthophyll cycle)
  • Ecosystem structure (canopy height and Leaf Area Index (LAI)
  • Total biomass maps and vegetation indices
  • High-resolution orthorectified camera imagery
Image
 Data products from YELL (D12) site. Left: Digital surface model. Right: Discrete lidar point cloud colorized by RGB camera imagery.

Data products from YELL (D12) site. Left: Discrete lidar point cloud colorized by RGB camera imagery. Right: Digital surface model.

If you would like to plan research activities on the ground to coincide with these surveys, please sign up to join our mailing list. The AOP Flight Operations team will email daily reports on the status of flights over each site which will be more up-to-date than the schedule posted on the website. Although they will attempt adherence to the published schedule, weather and logistical constraints may result in modifications to this plan.

We are likely unable to include additional flight areas to the existing NEON observatory collection plan this year. However, AOP will attempt to accommodate all requests to support Principal Investigator (PI)-led science flights via the NEON Assignable Assets program.

Aerial views of NEON sites

Aerial views of NEON sites

 

 

 

Now, it's time to fly!

Quick Links

  • 2020  Flight Schedule
  • Overview of an AOP
  • Tips for Getting Airborne Data
  • Request an Airborne Remote Sensing Survey
  • Daily Flight Report Email Sign Up: If you are interested in tracking the 2020 season, you can sign up to receive daily emails by NEON domain. Please note, you will only receive emails during the time period the AOP is in the domain you have signed up to follow
  • NEON Data Portal: all data products from 2019 flights are now available for download on the data portal 

 

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Related Posts:

Notice of Incorrect Geolocation in 2019 Toolik AOP Spectrometer Data
February 20, 2020
Upcoming changes to NEONScience.org
July 2, 2020
Orthorectification errors identified for camera images for 2018_YELL_1 and 2019_JERC_5
February 26, 2020
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The National Ecological Observatory Network is a major facility fully funded by the National Science Foundation.

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.