DMR manages coastal marine resources throughout the three coastal Mississippi counties of Hancock, Harrison and Jackson. DMR's Comprehensive Resource Management Plan (CRMP) is a special management program encompassing these three counties as well as Pearl River, Stone and George Counties.

Created in response to increased demands placed on marine resources resulting from the Mississippi Gulf Coast's booming casino industry, CRMP is coordinating agency efforts, developing public and private partnerships, and integrating wetland and water quality protection and management into the lifestyle of the coastal community.

"CRMP aims to manage the impacts of growth and development on the environment and balance coastal resource protection with economic expansion to promote sustainable development, or 'smart' growth," according to Tina Shumate, CRMP bureau director for DMR.

QuickBird imagery will be used, in part, to support CRMP's overall goal of building and enhancing the capacity of local jurisdictions to manage and protect coastal wetlands and marine resources.

DMR uses QuickBird satellite image products in a GIS to support CRMP's land development suitability model, a non-regulatory planning tool used by city and county agencies to assess environmental conditions, address growth management issues, accommodate sustainable development and reduce pressure on coastal wetlands and marine resources.

"We need more timely, accurate, detailed and site-specific information at our fingertips to make better decisions about a number of issues and applications," said Shumate.

"Digital satellite imagery lets us quickly identify areas appropriate for preservation and those that are more suitable for development."

The Mississippi Gulf Coast encompasses 370 miles of shoreline and nearly 56,000 acres of emergent wetlands. DMR purchased 10 scenes (2,720 square kilometers) of 60-centimeter resolution panchromatic and 2.44-meter resolution multispectral QuickBird imagery covering six coastal preserves, which encompasses 34,282 acres.

In addition, DMR purchased four scenes of imagery of the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Jackson County, which encompasses about 11,733 acres. DMR is using the QuickBird imagery to identify and delineate features such as new development areas, land use/land cover, and impervious surfaces.

DMR uses QuickBird imagery in conjunction with conventional, commercially available high-resolution aerial imagery.

According to Shumate, the QuickBird data will primarily cover large, widespread geographic areas throughout the counties, whereas the aerial imagery will mainly be used in the urban areas to meet large-scale mapping specifications.

Together, the two sources of remote sensing data will help create data layers in a regional GIS to serve the coastal cities and counties, which will tie-in to statewide, coastwide and nationwide GIS efforts.

In December 2003, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The EIS used historical satellite imagery to assess land use and land cover changes and population growth in the tri-county area over a 30-year period.

The EIS found that population increased by almost 52 percent, developed land increased by 51 percent, and emergent wetlands decreased by nearly 33 percent.

The EIS estimates the population of the three coastal counties will grow by 17 percent to upwards of 50 percent by the year 2020, resulting in a loss of one to three percent of natural habitat.

"Using lower resolution satellite imagery taken between 1972 and 2000, we have been able to evaluate land use patterns and determine what growth factors accounted for the loss of natural land cover and the increase in impervious surfaces."

"With the higher resolution imagery, we will be able to do more detailed calculations and update our GIS data sets much more frequently," said Grant Larsen, GIS specialist for DMR.

According to Larsen, the imagery-based GIS will support decision-making for a variety of coastal marine resource management applications, such as wetland loss analysis; habitat mapping and monitoring; ecosystem characterization and management; and fisheries inventorying, monitoring, research, and management.

DMR will be providing government agencies and the public with Internet access to the imagery.

"An integral aspect to this project is the ability to provide easy access to the imagery and derived geospatial datasets to federal, state, regional, and local government agencies and to the public," said Larsen.

"The DMR's use of QuickBird products is a tremendous opportunity for DigitalGlobe to work closely with and assist the Mississippi DMR in better managing one of the most rapidly growing areas in the state of Mississippi and the Gulf Coast region," said Brett Thomassie, DigitalGlobe's director of Civil Government Programs.

Related Links
DMR/CRMP
DigitalGlobe
SpaceDaily
Search SpaceDaily
Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only