Monterey Bay: The Magazine of CSU Monterey Bay Spring/Summer 2014, Vol. VII, No. I | Page 10

Thinking

NASA grant funds CSUMB research projects

Globally,
Acting
Locally

By James Tinney

Gwen Miller '14, Kirk
Post '13, Sam Phillips
'14 and Shane Keefauver
'13 install a wireless soil
moisture sensor network
in a Salinas field. All
four earned master’s
degrees in the Applied
Marine and Watershed
Science program in the
Division of Science and
Environmental Policy at
CSUMB.

Photos Forrest Melton

Gwen Miller configures a data logger.

Now that California’s governor has declared a drought emergency, NASA-funded research at Cal State Monterey Bay has
taken on a new immediacy.
With a NASA grant, CSUMB researchers are devising
high-tech tools that help farmers estimate how much water
their crops need. Other projects include using satellite data
to map changes in land uses around the globe and studying
lands in the Mojave Desert to determine their feasibility for
solar energy farms.
The researchers are funded through the 10-year, $32.4
million grant the university received from NASA in 2012.
Many of the grant-funded projects are continuing collaborations between scientists from CSUMB and NASA as they
seek to understand issues surrounding global warming and
other changes in our natural environment.
Susan Alexander, professor in the Division of Science and
Environmental Policy, has served as principal investigator on
Cal State Monterey Bay’s work with NASA since 1997.
“Twenty years ago, NASA Ames Research Center was
developing new research partnerships in the area of environmental science,” Alexander said. “It was a logical idea to
partner with a university, where you could have many more
scientists working in collaboration. It was also a great opportunity for CSUMB, which was a brand new university in
the region.”
The competitive grant CSUMB received in 2012 allowed

the university to continue and expand its work with NASA.
Many of the scientists funded through the grant maintain
offices at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field
northwest of San Jose.
“We have had a variety of projects. The agriculture work
gets a lot of attention because it is very applied, very local. It
is the one that has generated the most student involvement,
because there is a lot of field work,” Alexander said, citing
the opportunities it provides students to gain hands-on experience with emerging technologies in agriculture, including
wireless sensor networks and remote sensing.
Forrest Melton is the senior scientist leading the research
efforts to use satellite data and surface sensor networks to
better monitor agriculture productivity and water demand.
“California farmers are increasingly concerned about the
long-term sustainability of our agricultural water supplies,
and years like this underscore the challenges facing California’s farmers,” Melton said. “Our goal is to improve access
to satellite and weather data for farmers to support them in
improving on-farm water management.”
One of the outgrowths of this research is the development
of web and mobile applications that allow a farmer to access
data from Satellite Irrigation Management Support system.
That system provides measurements of the water needs
of a specific field by integrating satellite data with surface
weather information from the California Irrigation Manage-

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