Niklas Lollo interviews Vickie Ly, of the NASA Ames Research Center, about her work with NASA Develop: an applied science capacity building initiative. Her work weaves remote sensing, watercolor videos and environmental problem-solving to improve the Navajo Nation's drought monitoring and water management efforts.
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1:Method to the madness is next. You're listening to method to the badness, a biweekly public affairs show on k l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. I'm your host, Nicholas Lolo. And today I'm going to be interviewing Vicki Lee and her science researcher and science communicator at NASA Ames Research Center in mountain view, California. Welcome to [00:00:30] the show, Vickie. So you work at the NASA Ames research center and in particular you work with the NASA developed program. Mine explaining what the NASA developed program is.
Speaker 2:So NASA developed is a program within the applied sciences and what we do is be partner with other organizations, non-governmental governmental, um, different agencies and we partner with them to utilize NASA earth observation data, satellite data, and we apply that to different environmental concerns [00:01:00] and issues that they have. What are some sort of environmental concerns that you might apply it to? So for example, one of the main projects I've been working on is with the Navajo nation. And what we've been doing is figuring out how we can use NASA satellite data, precipitation data, and apply that to different drought monitoring efforts that they have. And it's, it's a really arid and dry place. It's located in the four corners of, um, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico [00:01:30] and Colorado. People may be familiar with monument valley. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And so when you're driving out there, you're just seeing these big red rocks, blue skies, beautiful country out there.
Speaker 2:Um, but it's also a lot, there's also a lot of challenges and um, in particularly it's looking at water, it's looking at water availability and it's looking at how you monitor water. And this has been a challenge [00:02:00] in the past and with climate change it's potentially going to be more variable and more difficult for monitoring water. Yeah, definitely. I think, um, I think the biggest challenges in the Navajo nation is how to, how to monitor water and how to monitor drought on a continuous scale and with spatial continuity and spatial coverage. [00:02:30] Why is NASA working with these communities? Speak about that, that tension. Um, was it difficult to approach them or did they approach you? Um, how did the connection start? Yeah. So how this partnership started between NASA and the Navajo nation was through Cindy Schmitt, who was a longtime researcher at of NASA Ames in mountain view, California.
Speaker 2:And she's been working with different end judge Digitas groups for over 10 years. Um, she put us in touch [00:03:00] with this gentleman by the name of Ramsay, um, with a Navajo technical university. And then we started talking to the Department of Water Resources and then we started talking to them about different issues that they're having. And um, one of them was looking at how, looking at how they collect water and looking at how they collect precipitation, um, data in specific. And with that, how do they calculate, um, [00:03:30] something called the SPI or standard precipitation index, something that tells how wet or dry and area is and sort of how severely, um, or sort of it's a gauge at looking at, um, drought and whether an area is experiencing drought or not. So I want to take a step back here. Satellites can capture precipitation data. Yeah. So satellites can do all types of things.
Speaker 2:Um, I think that what [00:04:00] most people are most familiar with in terms of satellites is looking at land cover, looking at land cover change, um, or just looking at maps of the places that they want to go and the places that they do go. And they do that by taking a bunch of high resolution images or low resolution depending on, yeah. So it kind of depends on um, sort of the frequency that you're looking at and sort of the range in the electromagnetic spectrum that you're [00:04:30] looking at. Maybe you're looking at red, green, blue, what we all look at in images and pictures that we see with our naked eye. Um, I e maps that we use on line like Google maps, but in other cases you can also look at near infrared or infrared, um, or other parts of the spectrum to get other types of information that you wouldn't be able to with your, with all near your eyes.
Speaker 2:How have they been collecting data before this? They have rain gauge [00:05:00] stations and re-engage rain gauges all across the Navajo nation and that sort of just like a bucket collecting water. And then they're recording the observations on any given day essentially. Yeah. So they have, it's essentially like a, a bucket and then, um, it collects rain and then every single, every single monthly, they go out on a certain day of the month, then they go out and drive to all of the rain cans and then, um, [00:05:30] measure what is, what has been collected for that month. So they were collecting data in buckets and having to drive around once per month. Why was that not sufficient? They actually still do that. They go out and still collect all of the rain gauge data monthly. But you know, one of the things is the Navajo nation is the biggest native territory in the u s and both and size.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's the size of [00:06:00] West Virginia to drive out and collect all of that data takes a lot of time and um, to maintain those places. And some of those places are so, um, rain stations, weather stations. And so, um, to maintain those also takes a lot of upkeep. So the utility of using satellite data is that it is continuous and regular and [00:06:30] it doesn't, you don't have to go out and get it. You just go onto your computer and download it. And it can be more precise too. Yeah, I mean it provides spatial, um, coverage versus having like one rain gauge and having just one point, you'll can look at entire areas and you can look at precipitation and how it covers all this area. And then you're able to take that precipitation [00:07:00] data, compare it to, um, a historical average and be able to say much more about a whole territory, a whole area than you are from a single point or sort of interpretating from different points.
Speaker 2:And can you describe a bit how the tool actually works? Yeah, so there's three main steps, um, within d sat. The first is to calculate an SBI. So you choose the type of SBI you want [00:07:30] to look at, uh, one month, six month or 12 month. Um, all of those correspond to different types of drought that you're looking at, agricultural, immunological, and then you choose the starting day or starting month. And the starting year and ending year. So that sort of gives you a range of time that you want to look at and calculate your spis for. Um, then in the next step you, um, are able to take what you've calculated [00:08:00] those spis and um, be able to look at statistics of those. So you are able to look at, you're able to look at statistics for a certain boundary. So you choose, um, the data that you've processed.
Speaker 2:And then you choose a certain boundary that you want to look at, for example, like agencies. And then within every single agency you're able to look at the statistics for that agency. So you can see, um, [00:08:30] the mean SPI for from April, 2014 to current. Um, and then the last step, which is really the, um, jazz hands snap, it's the, I don't know how to just the time lapse animations. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, the [00:09:00] last step is sort of the shiny step, sort of the, you're quoted as saying it's the bread and butter and the Cherry on top.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is both the bread and butter and also the cherry on top. Um, and within the last step you're able to visualize the spis. So, um, sort of addressing that issue of having spatial continuity [00:09:30] and coverage. Um, you're able to visualize SBI rasters, um, on a map and you're able to overlay different boundaries on top of that. So you can look at the Navajo nation political territories, watersheds, eco regions, um, on top of that and, and over time as well over a seasons or years. That's the sort of get in, get a sense for the history of drought or [00:10:00] rain in the area. Yeah, that's right. So based on the time that you selected in the previous step of the calculate SBI, um, then you're able to look at the time range and um, you're able to sort of run through time and see the changes seasonally.
Speaker 2:Um, and one other feature that is in there is plot analytics, um, which allows you to look at a certain area, um, within a boundary [00:10:30] and you identify that area and then it breaks it down of how much, what percent of that area is experiencing, what type of droughts it really wet, um, a really dry and everything in between. Okay. So you come in with a lot of this technical expertise and these sophisticated instruments. Is it difficult or was it a challenge for you to not appear like you're just imposing your ideas [00:11:00] on this community that has been working on monitoring its own water resources? Yeah, I think that, um, that's definitely a really big consideration. One. And when working with the Nova nation and with different indigenous communities, because you know, a lot of people are very interested in working with different indigenous communities.
Speaker 2:Um, and there's great need, but a lot of groups also go in and, [00:11:30] um, create something and then sort of depart. And in that, in trying to create a project, it was also how to create a partnership. How do you create a longterm partnership and how to really think about how this project is a stepping stone for other projects to come. And so how did you eat better, create that partnership? How did sort of approach them? I know you made some videos. Were those helpful? Yeah. So to better build some of those at [00:12:00] partnership. Um, one we had lots and lots of telecoms, which is always a lot of fun because you get to talk to people without seeing their face. That's a teleconference. Yes. A seller conference.
Speaker 2:So we had lots of telecoms, but in addition, um, we wanted to make some videos that sorta explained our project and something that we could use to explain our project, but also they could use to explain our partnership and [00:12:30] where we're going. And so one of the things that I wanted to do with the videos was to sort of take out our narration as much as possible and to use more of their narration. Um, because no one can really describe problem more than the person and people that are actually experiencing it. So, um, I hopped on the phone, I asked Theresa show one of the principal hydrologists if I could interview her. And at first she was like, um, [00:13:00] you want to what? And I was like, can I interview you for a video? And she's like, you're making a video. And I was like, just trust me.
Speaker 2:It's all gonna work out. She's like, does my face have to be on it? And I was like, now your face doesn't have to be on it. Um, I think you should explain the videos a little more because they're very creative. I guess the idea came, I remember trying to think about how we could create a video and what it would look like. [00:13:30] And I was thinking about like how we could get imagery, um, what type of images we would use and video and all of that. And in thinking about that one, the thing with youth with remote sensing with using satellites is that, uh, remote sensing implies that it's remote. So you actually aren't there. Like we work in California while the nomination is mostly in Arizona. So I was trying to think how could we collect data, how could we collect film, how [00:14:00] could we collect sound, how could we get these sort of technical details of a video.
Speaker 2:And I was kind of hitting a wall because I'm like, well, we aren't out there. We won't be able to make it out there just to shoot anything. Um, and that would take a lot of time to and resources that we don't have. And um, at the same time, um, one of my friends, Abby van Mucin was teaching a decal, um, here at [00:14:30] UC Berkeley and a decal is a student course. That's right. It's a student led course and she teaches this decal decal on how to take notes and how to illustrate your notes. So you ended up making these like beautiful watercolor videos. And this was inspired by Abby [inaudible]. Yeah. So Abby does these really great water color videos and it's sort of in, everything's in motion. So you're watching this hand move across the screen [00:15:00] painting all of these different images and transitioning from one scene to another.
Speaker 2:I was really inspired by her work because I thought it was a really great way to one, explain something because you're watching this blank canvas turn into something and then at the same time you're also watching one idea transform into another idea, transform into another idea, transcend, formed another idea. So in a way it was like how do we connect all the dots [00:15:30] in a project? You know, how do we explain the issue? How do we explain what we're trying to address? How do we explain what we are trying to develop? Um, the tool that we're trying to develop, how do we explain the technical things without being too technical? One of the solutions is make it pretty right. Nobody can refuse it. Pretty pretty picture. And when the viewer watches the picture of pier, they get a better sense of how [00:16:00] everything is connected. And I think we have a bit of the audio to share here today. Of course the listeners won't get the full experience for that. They can go on youtube and check out the video at NASA, develop beyond a shadow of a drought.
Speaker 3:If you leave on a half Pinko monitor water. If you leave 45 with a rock area, you have to drive all the way over to five hours. How many sites, and you know they do that every month. [00:16:30] We would like to cut back to where we could manage a few of the site and some are going to be managed by [inaudible]. If we could get some of our data remotely and religiously, it would help our program tremendously
Speaker 3:from one of the things that we wanted to do is to show the Navajo leadership. That's when we get emergency drought dollars. Where do we concentrate the leaf or [00:17:00] the way it is right now? Every time we have a drought, drought mitigation dollars get equally stripped at 110 chapters. You want a big shirt that's dropped. Mitigation dollars goes into chapters that we did the most with our tool. Water managers like Robert and Teresa, and better understand which agencies are in a greater state of drought. They're using NASA earth observations, drought mitigation resources [00:17:30] can be focused in the places where they're needed the most
Speaker 4:[inaudible].
Speaker 2:It really is a work. Did you find that useful for your project to have to integrate it with a storyboard and with the music? Yeah, definitely. Um, [00:18:00] it was really helpful because that storyboard served for our outline, for our papers. It served for an outline for our presentations. Um, so you took the video storyboard and then turned it into a academic paper. Yeah. And then we just filled in like technical details and all of the other stuff that we needed to put in there. Wow, that's a pretty good idea. Yeah, because you're drawing, you're literally drawing out all of the details and [00:18:30] if you can explain it to somebody that's walking down the street and that street being the Internet, then you can explain it definitely to any of your peers. And so this really helped me with the community, um, with the Navajo nation to help them understand your abilities at NASA.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so because, I mean, one of the things is people are always asking, well, what's NASA doing here? Um, I've had the [00:19:00] fortune of traveling some with Cindy Schmitt to, um, another reservation, the patchy reservation. And I, I don't think I've ever been asked that in my whole life. Um, the number of times I've, Vanessa, like, uh, so what's NASA doing here? Um, and it was a way that, um, for the video to be used in a way the video could be used by our partners in the Navajo [00:19:30] nation to explain what they're trying to use the tool for. Um, two different people that are visiting the Department of Resource Water Resources. It's a really easy and shareable medium and it takes not a lot of time to watch. So now that you've sort of built the partnership, um, or at least establish some measure of, of partnership, what has been the give and take, like on the project of improving their [00:20:00] water monitoring, when you're creating something, you want that give and take because you want to improve it, you want it, you're creating something for an end user.
Speaker 2:And so in these later stages of the project, um, in these later stages of the project, I've mostly been working with Carl McAllen who's a senior hydrologist. And, um, he's actually the main going to be the main person using m d PSAT, the tool that we're developing. [00:20:30] We'll show him like, this is what we've been trying out, this is what we've been testing, how does this look? Um, and then he'll say, that looks great. Or he'll, we'll be installing things on his computer or walking him through installations, um, or troubleshooting things on his computer with him and I'll screen share his screen and, um, we'll just sort of have this back and forth and we meet pretty much weekly to do so. [00:21:00] Well, so what have you been learning through the partnership? I think what we've been learning is how can this tool actually be used.
Speaker 2:You know, we go through the ups and downs of like, is this going to be used at all? Is all of this effort even going to be worth anything? Um, and then we go through these highs of like, oh, this is gonna change everything. And you know, Carl Avon says that too. I'll be like, this is going to be like historic and so why [00:21:30] is it going to be so historic? In his words, it's going to change the way that they do things. The ideas that will change the way that they'll be able to calculate those SPI values and report does SPF values indicating how dry in areas or the degree of trout that an area is experiencing so that you can tell the difference between one area and another area and be able to send drought relief dollars to one area versus another [00:22:00] area. How have they been allocating Jabil leaf dollars before this project?
Speaker 2:So that Navajo nation is split up to agencies which are equivalent to states and they divided equally amongst all of the states. So you can think of that in the u s that wouldn't really make sense because certain areas are inherently more dry and inherently more wet. But um, areas are going to experience way more drought than other areas. And so it's the same thing in the Navajo nation. We want to be [00:22:30] able to look at where areas are experiencing the most drought. So you'll be able to target the dollars exactly for those areas that need it most. Yeah, exactly. And that goes back to one of the main things that we wanted to address in this project is the ability to, um, say that one area is drought is experiencing more drought than another. Um, these, besides collecting rain gauge data, the Navajo nation currently uses, um, [00:23:00] SBI values calculated by the western regional climate center.
Speaker 2:That's really long mouthful, but basically that only splits the Navajo nation up into three different values. So you're having three values to explain, um, an area that's as large as West Virginia and those values are explaining what degree of drought in each area is experiencing versus having any finer detail of splitting it up by agencies [00:23:30] or chapters or watersheds or any other boundary. So is the Department of water resources retaining any of its old methodology, um, or how is it integrating what it has previously been working on with the new DSM in taking the next steps? That's sort of what we're thinking about. How do, how does this tool fit into the current methodology? And, um, so does it make sense to keep on using the western regional climate center calculations? Does it [00:24:00] make sense to use duset in what context? It doesn't make sense to use it just for monthly.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make sense to use it to calculate statistics. Does it make sense just to use it, the raster map. That's sort of something that we're trying to figure out right now in these later stages. And it's, it's really interesting because I feel like we're finally getting to a stage where it's becoming a little bit more real. You know, it's, it's being tested, it's being used [00:24:30] and the next step is really well how is it going to be used? How is it actually going to be implemented and how it will sort of the downstream effects change because of that. It's kind of interesting cause I think it's going to be kind of a lot of trial and error from here on out. Um, and it's going to take some experimentation and, but there is a lot of promise. One of the exciting things that this project will be a part of is a larger indigenous [00:25:00] people's initiative.
Speaker 2:I'm working title acronym to be created. Um, that is a partnership between NASA and, um, different indigenous communities in that initiative. Um, the idea is really to, to create a space where NASA can be come a facilitator with different communities. How do we bring tools, how do we create projects together? How do we create these longterm partnerships, [00:25:30] um, where we're educating, um, the youth, we're educating, um, college students, we're engaging community members and creating projects that are meaningful, culturally significant, sort of environmentally important. So not just drought. You might be moving on to whatever is relevant for that particular community. Yeah, definitely. I think that there's a lot of opportunity to expand much more and the idea sort [00:26:00] of to get coverage across the u s so having the southwest pocket, um, with the Nava nation and the Paci and working in the southeast as well as in lake country as well as in um, the Pacific northwest.
Speaker 2:All of these different areas are experiencing different types of environmental change. And so with that brings a lot of opportunity for us to be involved and um, [00:26:30] to create different projects and collaborations. So y'all at NASA develop, have tried to, you know, make this very accessible I guess and a, a, a great user interface which maybe scientists don't typically develop. Um, and having open source code put up on get hub. Um, can you tell me a little bit more about those projects and what was the motivation behind creating open source code? Yeah, I [00:27:00] guess, I mean the idea behind NASA capacity building and a lot of the initiatives that we have in applied sciences is working with the public and serving the public. And um, in that, I mean the idea when we're creating this is how do we, how do we get this in other people's hands?
Speaker 2:How do we, how can, how can we, can we use this in other areas? I mean, so many different parts of the world are experiencing drought [00:27:30] and if that can be used in other areas more the better. Yeah. So you have it. An open source and coated in the program language are [inaudible], which is also free and open source. And that's sort of that. One of the ideas too behind it is, is working when working with different communities, you want to make things available. You don't want to create things where you have to have certain software programs that may be more expensive. Um, [00:28:00] so one of the intentions behind that was what can we use out there that is free and open source and virtually anybody anywhere could download it and be able to use it.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Vickie, for coming in today. So great to hear about your project. We're excited for where we're incented.
Speaker 2:Thanks Nick.
Speaker 1:And if you'd like to learn more about NASA develop in their other projects, you can check out their youtube page at NASA develop or [00:28:30] you can visit their website at develop dot l a r c. Dot nasa.gov.
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