NEON: Long-term measurements of the impacts of invasive species, and climate and land use changes on ecosystem structure and function

Description

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is a continental-scale research platform for discovering, understanding, and forecasting the impacts of climate change, land-use change, and invasive species on ecology. Local site-based flux tower and field measurements will be coordinated with high-resolution, regional airborne remote sensing observations. A linkage to scaling to continental scales will be provided through access to satellite and other national data sets. The site-based flux towers, referred to as the Fundamental Instrument Unit (FIU), are designed to integrate the ecological drivers, responses, and interactions among the ecosystem-level soil-plant-aquatic-atmosphere continuum and enable consistent sampling at the continental scale over many decades. The NEON Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) is an aircraft platform carrying remote sensing instrumentation designed to achieve sub-meter to meter scale ground resolution. The remote sensing payload consists of a waveform recording LIDAR altimeter, a high-resolution imaging spectrometer, and a digital camera providing information on canopy structure, biochemistry and biophysical properties, and fine-scale land use and land cover.