David E.

Steitz
Headquarters, Washington Oct. 5, 2001
(Phone: 202/358-1730)

RELEASE: 01-190

NASA ANNOUNCES EARTH SCIENCE

APPLICATIONS PROJECTS

NASA will fund 15 projects designed to help state,

local, regional and tribal government organizations apply
NASA and commercially derived knowledge and tools to address
Earth Science related issues that impact our daily lives.

The projects provide information or help in decision making

for resource management, environmental assessment, community
growth and infrastructure, and disaster management.
Applications developed by these awards will benefit the
awardees and government entities across the United States.

A major objective of NASA's Earth Science Applications

Program is the development of applications that provide
geospatial information to support communities. NASA hopes to
act as a catalyst for the development and adoption of methods
and techniques by local communities that draw upon science,
data and technology derived from Earth Science funded
research, as well as from commercial data, data products and
industry capabilities.

NASA, as a research and development organization, does not

provide funding to support the operational requirements and
services of other agencies or organizations. Operations for
these projects will be funded by the user organizations and
conducted exclusively by the user, or in association with
other public or private entities.

The selections are in response to a Broad Agency Announcement

the agency issued last spring. The goal of this effort is the
implementation of on-going applications that help to create
systemic change in the affected communities, leading to
better informed decision making and increasing productivity
of local efforts in problem solving.

The projects also hope to:

* Extend the benefits of NASA derived data, research and

technology from global and national levels to state, local,
regional and tribal levels
* Support development of a robust remote sensing community
involving public and private sector partners
* Transfer remote sensing and associated technologies to the
user community with the prime responsibility in the nation
for resource management and related activities requiring
geospatial information
* Stimulate the use of commercial data, data products and
operational capabilities by public sector organizations
* Coordinate capture and dissemination of geospatial data at
the state, local regional and tribal levels with national and
global spatial data infrastructures

Examples of selected projects include use of remote sensing

data for resource management and community planning of the
Nez Perce tribal reservation; sensing and monitoring of
invasive plant species in the state of Idaho; and monitoring,
understanding and regulating rapidly growing urban watersheds
in Texas.

Each project will be funded for a maximum three year term and
each of the projects will address existing identified
problems within communities, with the hope that after the
three year period communities will take full ownership of the
new decision support systems.

Twelve of the fifteen projects include partnerships with

commercial organizations. Fourteen of the fifteen projects
will incorporate use of commercial data. The total three year
NASA funding for the project will be approximately $12
million, with an additional $2 million in cost sharing from
the partnering organizations. The fifteen projects are
located in thirteen states across the country. NASA's Stennis
Space Center, Miss., will oversee the implementation of these
awards.

A complete listing of the projects can be found on the Earth

Sciences web site at:

http://research.hq.nasa.gov/code_y/dynamic.cfm?op_fy=2001

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