Community and Regional Planning Program Director and Professor Zhenghong Tang initiated a new federally funded project titled “Develop a near real-time tool from Sentinel satellites for wetland conservation and flood mitigation.” The overall goal of this project is to use the open-access Sentinel satellites to advance existing management capacity for near-real-time monitoring and assessment of wetlands in Nebraska. Wetlands in Nebraska provide mid-latitude stopover habitat for wetland dependent bird species migrating through the Central Flyway. This juxtaposition along the flyway provides globally important habitats to millions of migratory waterfowl each year. Wetlands have been increasingly recognized by the local/state/federal agencies for their critical role in flood water storage at the basin scale. Thus, up-to-date inundation information is essential for maintaining and managing sustained ecosystem services from wetlands in Nebraska. This project is developed through the strong collaborations with the stakeholders to enhance their capacity to improve the quality and quantity of wetland habitat in Nebraska. The deliverables will provide a robust tool to discover the near-real time information on wetland ecosystems, and advance wetland management capacity in clean and safe water management. The US Environmental Protection Agency funded $120,000 for this project. The overall cost of this project is $160,000. The project will start in 2022 and will end in 2024.
-Zhenghong Tang
