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It is a critical time to reflect on the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) science to date as well as envision what research can be done right now with NEON (and other) data and what training is needed to enable a diverse user community. NEON became fully operational in May 2019 and has pivoted from planning and construction to operation and maintenance. In this overview, the history of and foundational thinking around NEON are discussed. A framework of open science is described with a discussion of how NEON can be situated as part of a larger data constellation—across existing networks and different suites of ecological measurements and sensors. Next, a synthesis of early NEON science, based on >100 existing publications, funded proposal efforts, and emergent science at the very first NEON Science Summit (hosted by Earth Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder in October 2019) is provided. Key questions that the ecology community will address with NEON data in the next 10 yr are outlined, from understanding drivers of biodiversity across spatial and temporal scales to defining complex feedback mechanisms in human–environmental systems. Last, the essential elements needed to engage and support a diverse and inclusive NEON user community are highlighted: training resources and tools that are openly available, funding for broad community engagement initiatives, and a mechanism to share and advertise those opportunities. NEON users require both the skills to work with NEON data and the ecological or environmental science domain knowledge to understand and interpret them. This paper synthesizes early directions in the community’s use of NEON data, and opportunities for the next 10 yr of NEON operations in emergent science themes, open science best practices, education and training, and community building.

Infrastructure is a worldwide policy priority for national development via regional integration into the global economy. However, economic, ecological and social research draws contrasting conclusions about the consequences of infrastructure. We present a synthetic approach to the study of infrastructure, focusing on a multidimensional treatment of indicators of connectivity and resilience. As our study case, we adopt a tri-national frontier in the southwestern Amazon being integrated by a highway, and use survey data for rural leaders to evaluate the relationship of community connectivity to market towns and social-ecological resilience. The findings show varying relationships among different dimensions of connectivity and resilience, which bear implications regarding indicator approaches to the study of infrastructure impacts.

Recent years have witnessed an expansion in international investment in large-scale infrastructure projects with the goal of achieving global economic integration. We focus on one such project, the Inter-Oceanic Highway in the "MAP" region, a trinational frontier where Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru meet in the southwestern Amazon. We adopt a resilience approach as an integrative framework to understand various types of road-paving impacts. We focus on migration activity as an indicator of retention of collective memory, a concept associated with resilience. We pursue a comparative analysis of the three sides of the MAP frontier as well as subregions within each side. Since road paving may be mediated by other factors, we distinguish among the effects of multiple explanatory factors. Data come from a multinational survey of rural communities. The findings show considerable net migration and turnover, both indicative of eroding collective memory and a lack of demographic resilience to externally induced change in the MAP frontier. The findings indicate variation across the frontier, which road paving helps explain, along with some of the mediating factors. These findings contribute to the literature on the impacts of new infrastructure and integration as well as the study of social-ecological resilience.

Recent years have witnessed an expansion in international investment in large-scale infrastructure projects with the goal of achieving global economic integration. We focus on one such project, the Inter-Oceanic Highway in the 'MAP' region, a trinational frontier where Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru meet in the southwestern Amazon. We adopt a resilience approach as an integrative framework to understand various types of road-paving impacts. We focus on migration activity as an indicator of retention of collective memory, a concept associated with resilience. We pursue a comparative analysis of the three sides of the MAP frontier as well as subregions within each side. Since road paving may be mediated by other factors, we distinguish among the effects of multiple explanatory factors. Data come from a multinational survey of rural communities. The findings show considerable net migration and turnover, both indicative of eroding collective memory and a lack of demographic resilience to externally induced change in the MAP frontier. The findings indicate variation across the frontier, which road paving helps explain, along with some of the mediating factors. These findings contribute to the literature on the impacts of new infrastructure and integration as well as the study of social-ecological resilience. DOI: 10.1111/j.1549-0831.2009.00008.x

Multistakeholder forums (MSFs) are applied in territorial planning with the goal of bringing together diverse actors in decision‐making, allowing the participation and empowerment of indigenous and local communities, protecting their territories, and promoting community‐based conservation efforts. However, important questions remain. How are territorial planning MSFs shaped by context and power? Can they represent communities' diversity, respect their ancestral rights, and bring real change? This article explores how context and power affect the capacities and challenges of territorial planning MSFs to include, represent, empower, and benefit communities. Examining actors' perceptions, we comparatively analyze two cases, in two Brazilian states with contrasting contexts. We conclude that territorial planning MSFs are highly political spaces influenced by complexities in context, power relations, and communities' diversity. They may include, represent, and empower communities and help recognize and conserve their territories, but not necessarily. Especially in difficult settings, communities face more challenges than other actors to be represented and participate at MSFs, and territorial planning may empower or "invisibilize" communities. Other mechanisms (e.g., social action) can be key for communities instead of, or in synergy with, MSFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we reflect on more than 40 years of geomatics/surveying education experience at the University of Florida (UF) with a focus on key programmatic changes over the last decade. This includes key challenges faced by the program and subsequent adaptive actions. We summarize continuous efforts made by the UF's administration, Geomatics program faculty' and staff, and collaboration with stakeholders in the state of Florida to address strategic issues faced by the program through the years. In the article, we show that carefully considered expansion to address geographically disadvantaged, "place-bound" student populations and adoption of distance education is one way to address current geomatics education issues (e.g., low enrollment). In addition, diversification of the geomatics education portfolio through degree and certification programs that address industry demand can have a positive impact on increasing both Geomatics program exposure and the level of service to the surveying and mapping profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores social network analysis (SNA) as a means to revise and expand the concept of adaptive capacity in household-level research on climate change adaptation. SNA has recently been integrated into research on adaptive capacity in the global change sciences, but often not at the household level. The methodology relies heavily on measuring food, money, wood and water, labour, and information about disease exchanges between households, all of which are referenced in previous work on adaptation in the developing world. The regional focus is the rural Eastern Cape of South Africa but results have wider geographic application. Results bring into question assumptions about adaptive capacity’s relationship to network centrality, one of the most common measures in SNA. This is particularly where exchanges of wood and water and the information about disease are concerned. In the case of the former, results controvert contemporary work on livelihoods and natural resource dependence, while the latter points to a need for further clarification on when households share information about their ill health. The use of network variables combined with other methods may allow for a more concrete understanding of household adaptive capacity in the rural developing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Florida is the fourth most vulnerable coastal state in the USA to sea level rise (SLR). Studies predict that a 1.20 m rise translates into the displacement of almost five million people and destroys about 2.6 million homes. The only solution to reducing the vulnerability of Florida's coastline is the creation and implementation of coastal policies, including a reduction in armoring and the adoption of policies such as rolling easements. This paper advances a SLR inundation computer model that estimates the costs of applying rolling easement policy through three outcomes: property value loss, property area loss and conservation easement payments to home owners. The GIS computer model is modular which allows new policy components, datasets, or ArcGIS tools to easily be added to the model. The results show that property land inundation and real property losses are primarily linear while rolling easement compensation payments are substantial during the first three scenarios then are largely stable for the remaining SLR steps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fusion and miniaturization of spatial technologies such as GPS and the emergence of affordable platforms to carry these technologies has opened up new opportunities for high-resolution mapping. In this paper we discuss the results of pilot tests carried out in Albania at the end of 2013 through an Innovation Grant from the Europe and Central Asia (EGA) division of the World Bank. Our objective was to design and test a methodology based on an unmanned aerial system (UAS) for producing high-resolution orthophotos that could be used for urban planning, infrastructure routing, and environmental monitoring and as a basis for improving existing cadastral data. We outline the methodology in terms of: (a) prefield preparation and mobilization; (b) field work (including premarking, geodetic and ground control, and flying); (c) postficld processing (Multiview Stereopsis, production of orthophotos and 3D models, quality control and assessment). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Florida is threatened by sea level rise (SLR) because of its low elevation and populous coastlines. With only a 0.3 m future water level rise, most of Florida's natural beaches will disappear; with a 1.2 m rise, 2.4 million people will be displaced and 730,000 hectares of land lost. The only way to combat this threat is through coastal policy making. Currently, counties in Florida have no way to choose "good" policies due to the lack of needed information. Using high-resolution digital elevation models (DEM) derived from airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) measurements, parcel data, and beach transects from the Army Corps of Engineers, the effects of Sea Level Rise (SLR) on two study areas in Key West (Monroe County) and Pinellas County were analyzed in this study, under three policy scenarios: armoring prohibition, armoring, and relocation (rolling easements). To better address the SLR uncertainty, a range of SLR estimates from 0.15 m to 1.35 m, in 0.15 m increments, was used to simulate the three policy options. Each policy scenario was considered in view of selected primary criteria for each policy, obtained from literature and simulating them using ArcGIS. The results show that Key West would be rapidly inundated by rising waters, leaving little room for "relocation" but the mainland of Pinellas would be inundated much more slowly, allowing for progressive policy options to be implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geomatics educational programs in the United States and Canada are similar in many ways. Differences, however, exist in the relative success of each of them. Healthier Canadian geomatics education is demonstrated through a number of metrics including: the number and diversity of geomatics faculty as well as the enrollment of undergraduate and graduate students. By contrast, geomatics educational programs in the U.S. have struggled; several have closed (e.g., University of Wisconsin) or been restructured (e.g., University of Maine and University of Florida). Getting ample numbers of students into the classroom has posed another challenge for American programs. The evolution and current status of geomatics education in the two countries are explored. Highlights of the gap in geomatics education between the two nations are presented. Lessons learned from this research are outlined in the form of recommendations at the end of the paper for decision and policy makers to take into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While surveying programs appear to be proliferating at two- and four-yea," colleges, graduate programs in Geomatics/Surveying have been undergoing major transformations that have de-linked undergraduate and graduate programs in our discipline. In tiffs paper I review the reorganization of Geomatics programs in five U.S. universities and identify a severe shortage of qualified individuals who will teach Surveying/Geomatics in the future. Until recently, the lack of effective marketing of our programs has weakened our education programs, causing supply to fall well behind demand. Opportunities to ride the wave of GIS and a shift toward spatial information brokering have been missed. I suggest that we are at a crucial crossroads in our discipline's evolution and need to identify new paradigms as a basis for developing more resilient and responsive educational programs. Three promising areas are proposed as a means of promoting a debate within the Geomatics community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]