6.10 New technologies for demonstrating environmental science impacts to society

Wednesday, 12 January 2000: 1:59 PM
Phillip A. Zuzolo, Autometric Incorporated, Springfield, VA; and A. M. Powell Jr.

New technologies are now available for demonstrating environmental science impacts to society in a comprehensive format. These technologies overcome the limitations of displaying 3-dimensional and 4-dimensional impact issues with 2-dimensional graphical displays. In addition, these new technologies allow for the display of the interactions between multiple environmental factors, as well as their interaction with geographic features, in a comprehensive and fused scene. This capability will become increasingly important to meet the future needs of a growing society.

This paper explores one such tool which exploits new technological capabilities and demonstrates the comprehensive application of products to promote a better understanding of environmental impacts on society. The product used to demonstrate the environmental impact concepts is the Enhanced Digital Geodata Exploitation (EDGE) Software. Using this software tool, we have developed a collection of visual products which are included in this paper and apply to specific environmental impact scenarios. These products combine environmental analysis data with commercial earth imagery, digital elevation model terrain data, and maps to focus the environmental impacts toward a real-world scenario. An explanation of each product regarding the relationship between the environmental analysis data displayed and the impact scenario demonstrated is provided. Each of these product scenarios is targeted for dissemination by the media for public use to provide a better understanding of environmental impacts through visual media products.

The continued use of technology to assist with the understanding of how the environment can and does impact society may offer potential solutions on how to minimize impacts for certain geographic areas. This article demonstrates how to exploit one such tools for that purpose as well as offering potential formats for media products which are best suited for that solution.

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