Landsats Aff

Water – I/L – China

Chinese water crisis is unstable: inevitable leads to class wars and destabilizes the region as the PRC steals water from neighbors.
CNN 10 (http://articles.cnn.com/2010-09-13/world/china.water.crisis_1_water-shortages-water-supplies-drinking-water?_s=PM:WORLD, accessed 7/7/11) CJQ

In southwest China's Guizhou province in August, a drought affected more than 600,000 people and nearly 250,000 heads of livestock, according to Xihua. Parched soil in rice fields was covered with cracks. Beijing's water shortage will soon reach 200 million to 300 million cubic meters, even as the city waits for a new diversion of water from southern China, according to state-run media. Hundreds of other Chinese cities face varying levels of water shortages and deteriorating water quality, even as industries continue to pollute water. China's quest for water has stressed downriver countries as well. Bangladesh, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, India, Thailand and Vietnam say China's aggressive dam-building is depriving their citizens, especially subsistence farmers and other poor people, of water. Such deprivation by China is hard to document. Those other countries also lack the money or political ability to build dams and reservoirs as quickly as China has. Chinese officials routinely build infrastructure and relocate residents despite opposition. Chinese water use has surged with a growing number of factories and power plants, as well as with personal consumption. Swelling numbers of Chinese can now afford piped water, private bathrooms, washing machines, homes with gardens, cars that need washing, and more food, which needs growing. Buying power also has led to a growing number of golf courses, and ski resorts that use man-made snow. Across the country, China has spent tens of billions of dollars to dam rivers, build reservoirs and dig deeper wells. Beijing also has tapped underground water to meet its needs, with the water level in the plains falling to 11 meters to 24 meters below sea level over the past decade, according to Xinhua. Such demand for water is unsustainable. The World Bank warns that dwindling water supplies will pit rich against poor, and rural against urban, in China. Without dramatic changes in water use, tens of millions of Chinese will turn into environmental refugees over the next decade, the World Bank says.

Water – Impact – China

Chinese water crisis would divert water from the rest of Asia, spread disease, cause a food shortage and trigger civil war.
CNN 10 (http://articles.cnn.com/2010-09-13/world/china.water.crisis_1_water-shortages-water-supplies-drinking-water?_s=PM:WORLD, accessed 7/7/11) CJQ

If China continues to overexploit its scarce water resources a serious water crisis looms in its future, which could even set off consequences for the rest of the world. As the North continues to rely more heavily on water that comes from the South, regionally conflicts over water could erupt. In addition, competition between sectors for water supply could develop into something more violent and cause serious civil unrest. The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is the source of rivers that reach India, Bangladesh, Burma, Bhutan, Nepal, Cambodia, Pakistan, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. When China begins to run out of water, it may try to hoard the remaining water supply for its own people, thereby diverting water that would have reached these countries in South and Southeast Asia. Many of these countries, specifically India, are already facing their own severe water crises, which will only be exacerbated if China diverts rivers that would have delivered much needed water. Having extensively contaminated its own major rivers through unbridled industrialization, China now threatens the ecological viability of river systems tied to South and Southeast Asia in its bid to meet its thirst for water and energy.Both diverting water that would have flowed to other countries and allowing increasingly polluted water to run through other countries has already angered neighboring countries and will continue to do so. Political relations could be further strained by massive migration of people from regions facing severe water shortages that could spill over into other countries. In fact, many analysts argue that the oil wars of the 20th century will be replaced by water wars in the 21st century. Polluted water has been linked to the spread of numerous diseases, including cancers. Increasing levels of pollution could lead to more serious and widespread health problems, dehydration, and the increased prevalence of cancer in Chinese people. Because China’s rivers run through so many different countries in the region, disease could rapidly spread to large numbers of people. China’s food supply is incredibly vulnerable to water shortages. Rapid industrialization inevitably leads to a heavy loss of cropland, which can override any increase in land productivity and lead to an absolute decline in food production. China’s grain harvests have already fallen short of demand for the past several years, causing China to import their grain. According to Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute, consumption outstrips production by over 45 million tons a year. It is very possible that in the near future China will become the largest importer of agricultural goods, which could shock the world’s grain markets and trigger higher food prices around the world.

***Refugees Advantage***

Refugees – UQ – Forecasts fail

Current hurricane forecasts aren’t reliable enough to evacuate in time
Andronache et al 6(Constantin PHD @ GIT, Rudolph Hon PHD @ MIT, Barbara Mento Prof. @ Notre Dame, Rani Dalgin Research Associate GIS, proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc06/papers/papers/pap_2320.pdf, DA 7/6/11, OST)

In Figure 13, we note significant total population as the area affected by flood is densely populated. We try to understand population behavior and response to a mandatory evacuation order. Studies show that the State of Louisiana preference for advanced notification time of minimum 72 hours, the longest time in the country (some states have a requirement of advanced notification of 12 hours) for Category 5 hurricane (Wolshon et al, 2001). Current forecasts are not precise enough to give a reliable notification of 72 hours, and in practice the order was given about one day in advance. Previous studies also established evacuation plans and procedures and presented possible problems of the so called low mobility groups. The number of people without access to transportation in New Orleans is about 25-30 percent of the population. Moreover, destitute, elderly, prisoners, infirm and tourists contribute to the low mobility group. The problem was addressed by emergent management agencies to provided buses for the evacuation of low mobility groups. Earlier reports and experience of Katrina showed that New Orleans did not have the adequate supply of busses to transport all low mobility people (Wolshon, 2001).

Current observation satellite data lacks necessary accuracy
Bjorgo 1 (Einar, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:HF5pLHdthbEJ:scholar.google.com/+hurricanes+landsats+refugees+einar&hl=en&as_sdt=0,48, DA 7/6/11, OST)

In order to make efficient use of geographic information collected prior to or during humanitarian operations, the data should be stored and analyzed in a GIS. This requires that the data are geo-referenced, and ideally in a standardized format, so that they can be swiftly uploaded to the GIS. Satellite images can all be delivered with geographic coordinates for referencing when purchased through a data provider. However, the geometric accuracy of the data and rectified end-products may vary. This accuracy depends on how the geo-referencing was carried out, as well as the quality and number of ground control points used. If e.g. only satellite-orbit characteristics were used, the accuracy may vary from less than one pixel (a pixel is the smallest image-element, here defined to be the same as the spatial resolution of the image), to several pixels. If several known ground control points are used to reference the image, e.g. collected by relief-staff in the field using Global Positioning System (GPS) hand-held receivers, the accuracy normally is less than one pixel. Thus, satellite images should be geo-referenced according to the application and level of accuracy the information managers need, large area overviews of e.g. geo-locating damaged infrastructure in war torn areas or detailed refugee camp planning. The values of the acquired data signals must of course also be accurate in order to be used in decision-making processes. If an area is classified as deforested, then this image-derived information must be true. This type of accuracy is related to technical parameters, such as radiometric and spectral accuracy and will not be further described here, as that would be a highly technical discussion. The fact is, though, that most satellite sensors used by UN humanitarian organizations have been tested for many years and data analysis algorithms have been verified. One should nevertheless be aware of that satellite images consist of information collected from 400 to 36,000 km above the earth’s surface, and several parameters, such as haze and on-the-ground meteorological conditions may affect the data sensed from space. That is why image processing, analyses and interpretation should be carried out by experts.

Refugees – Solvency – Mapping

Land sats collect data every 16 days data is used for population mapping
Rosenburg 3/2 (Matt, Geographer, http://geography.about.com/od/geographictechnology/a/landsat.htm, 2011, DA 7/4/11, OST)

The Landsat satellites make loops around the earth and are constantly collecting images of the surface through the use of a variety of sensing devices. Since the beginning of the Landsat program in 1972, the images and data have been available to all countries around the world. Images are used to measure rain forest loss, assist with mapping, determine urban growth, and population change. The different Landsats each have different remote sensing equipment. Each sensing device records radiation from the surface of the earth in different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. Landsat 7 has more sensing equipment than any other Landsat. It even includes a new panchromatic scanner with an impressive resolution of 15 meters (the highest resolution until Landsat 7 was 30m). This means that buildings or other objects which are 15 meters across will show up on the Landsat images. The Landsats orbit the earth from the north to south poles and vice versa. Landsat 7 completes a full orbit of the earth in about 99 minutes, allowing the satellite to achieve over 14 orbits per day. The satellites make a complete coverage of the earth every 16 days.

Satellites help track human movement
NASA 6 (http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/news-archive/news_0055.html, 12/27, DA 7/4/11, OST)

A new USGS publication – Rate, Trends, Causes, and Consequences of Urban Land-Use Change in the United States (Professional Paper 1726) – studies the change in land use associated with increasing urbanization and its impacts at local, regional, and national scales. Based on the broad view of satellite imagery, the twenty scientific contributions that make up the publication examine urban land change in the United States from many perspectives – historical, geographic, economic, and ecological. Together the analyses provide new insights into critical issues of concern for both science and society. “The knowledge of how and why urban land-use change occurs coupled with a projection of its direction and likely effect can be helpful in informing local, regional, and national decisions about land use,” said Barbara Ryan, Associate USGS Director for Geography. “These public decisions will not only shape communities, but will substantially affect citizens’ lives and livelihood, the economy, and the environment for years to come.” As part of its mission to describe and understand the Earth, the USGS systematically monitors land surface change by observing the Earth with remote sensing satellites, studies the connections between people and those changes with geographic analysis, and provides individuals and society with relevant science information they can use to manage the consequences of those changes.

Landsats can watch human movement
NASA 10 (landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/news-archive/news_0276.html, Mar 10, DA 7/4/11, OST)

In an article titled “Modeling the human invader in the United States,” USGS scientists Thomas Stohlgren, Catherine Jarnevich, and Chandra Giri modeled humans as an “invasive species” as they “spread” in the conterminous U.S. from 1992 to 2001. Using the Landsat-derived National Land Cover Data (NLCD) together with a modeling program they mapped urbanization. (An area the size of Massachusetts was urbanized during the nine-year period studied and agricultural lands and forests were most likely to be urbanized.) The model, called Maxent, predicts species spread based on environmental factors. The authors used Maxent to model and map human spread from 1992 to 2001 and then compared it to the Landsat NLCD information. Using selected environmental variables (temperature, humidity, elevation, slope, geology) the model was 92.5 percent accurate. Based on their model results the authors concluded that humans have a highly predictable urbanization or “spread” pattern based on the environmental drivers of topography (elevation and slope) and climate (temperature and humidity).

Refugees – Solvency – Mapping

Early warning systems key to prevent massive refugee flows

Kanji 8 (Fareedal, Masters in Sci @ AIT, fareedali-kanji.com/files/Applications_of_space_technology_-_Fareedali_Kanji_2008.pdf, may, DA 7/7/11, OST)

Disaster Management is crucial to countless people, with seventeen of the world’s twenty largest cities susceptible to major natural disasters (Holdaway, 2001), and with about three million people who lost their lives as a result of natural disasters over the last twenty years (Rodriguez and Rao, 1993). Particularly, Coastal Disaster Management, within a larger integrated coastal management framework, has received great attention and support since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the recent cyclone in Myanmar, in part because of the sheer scale of the resulting disasters. Yet, the world’s coasts are drawing evermore people, with thirteen of the fifteen largest cities located along the coast (Tralli and Blom et al., 2005). Therefore, those responsible for the safety of coastal areas are increasingly conducting research into new technology, and further developing existing technology, to issue early warnings to coastal populations for hazards threatening their lives, livelihoods and property. Early warnings are important to give enough time for coastal communities to successfully evacuate their people, as well as facilitate effective rescue, relief and rehabilitation activities, and on a larger time scale, can minimise disasters by allowing sufficient time to plan and implement preparedness and mitigation measures (Groat, 2004; Group on Earth Observations, 2008; Holdaway, 2001; Rodriguez and Rao, 1993; Tralli and Blom et al., 2005). Early warning systems have contributed to a tenfold decrease in casualties over the last fifty years, although economic loses have increased (Golnaraghi and Migraine, 2007).

Refugees – Solvency – Hurricanes

LandSats are key to mitigating hurricanes
NASA 10 (nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/features/katrina-retrospective.html, 8/24, DA 7/4/11, OST)

By the time the hurricane subsided, Katrina had claimed more than 1,800 human lives and caused roughly $125 billion in damages. As scientists and rescue organizations worked on the ground to prepare for the hurricane and assist in its wake, NASA provided data gathered from a series of Earth-observing satellites to help predict the hurricane's path and intensity. In the aftermath, NASA satellites also helped identify areas hardest hit. In this 3 1/2-minute video created by NASA-TV producer Jennifer Shoemaker at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., viewers will see many different kinds of data NASA satellites gathered about the storm. The video contains a sampling of the kinds of things NASA studies about hurricanes. Various additional data products are created in hurricane and post-hurricane research that are not depicted in the video.

LandSats key to early warning for hurricanes
NASA 10 (nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/features/katrina-retrospective.html, 8/24, DA 7/4/11, OST)

The video opens with Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperatures data from an instrument called AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System) that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. Warm ocean waters (of 80 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer) provided energy to fuel the growing storm. Next, the MISR (Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite captured the growth of cloud tops in the gathering storm. Just before landfall, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite data revealed "hot towers" hidden within the hurricane -- powerful thunderstorms that helped intensify Katrina. TRMM also captured data on rainfall amounts throughout the hurricane's lifecycle. Finally, the video shows Landsat satellite imagery of New Orleans before and during the flooding, as well as a more recent view of a city still rebuilding from the hurricane some five years later.

Landsats key to hurricane early warning
Haymet 7 (Tony Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/09/AR2007050902451_pf.html, 5/10, DA 7/4/11, OST)

NASA not only launches shuttles and builds space stations, it also builds and operates our nation's satellites that observe and monitor the Earth. These satellites collect crucial global data on winds, ice and oceans. They help us forecast hurricanes, track the loss of Arctic sea ice and the rise of sea levels, and understand and prepare for climate changes. NASA's budget for science missions has declined 30 percent in the past six years, and that trend is expected to continue. As more dollars are reallocated to prepare for missions back to the moon and Mars, sophisticated new satellites to observe the Earth will be delayed, harming Earth sciences. The National Academy of Sciences has noted that the Landsat satellite system, which takes important measurements of global vegetation, is in its fourth decade of operation and could fail without a clear plan for continuation. The same is true for the QuikSCAT satellite, which provides critical wind data used in forecasting hurricanes and El Niño effects.

Refugees – Solvency – Hurricanes

Sattelites help us mitigate disasters
Haymet 7 (Tony Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/09/AR2007050902451_pf.html, 5/10, DA 7/4/11, OST)

Satellites provide coverage of vast, remote regions of our planet that would otherwise remain unseen, especially the oceans, which play an important role in climate change. Without accurate data on such fundamentals as sea surface height, temperatures and biomass, as well as glacier heights and snowpack thickness, we will not be able to understand the likelihood of dangers such as more severe hurricanes along the Gulf Coast or more frequent forest fires in the Pacific Northwest. Climate change is the most critical problem the Earth has ever faced. Government agencies and the private sector, as well as individual citizens, need to better grasp the risks and potential paths of global climate change. Mitigating these risks and preparing for the effects of warming will require scientific understanding of how our complex planet operates, how it is changing, and how that change will affect the environment and human society. John F. Kennedy's brilliant call to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s set an arbitrary deadline, but the deadline we face today is set by nature. NASA must continue to play a vital role in helping find ways to protect our planet for (and perhaps from) its intelligent life. Exploration of space is a noble quest. But we can't afford to be so starry-eyed that we overlook our own planet.
Landsats provide rapid disaster relief data
NASA 6/27 (http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/flooding-20110627.html, 2011, DA 7/4/11, OST)

The Souris River finally crested on June 26, but not before more than 4,000 homes and hundreds of businesses were flooded. About one-fourth of Minot’s 40,000 residents evacuated the city. Residents expect a long recovery as the river slowly retreats. The Souris River reading at Minot’s Broadway Bridge around 11:00 p.m. on June 25 reached nearly four feet higher than the all-time high set in 1881. The Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Landsat satellites have been consistently gathering data about our planet since 1972. They continue to improve and expand this unparalleled record of Earth’s changing landscapes, for the benefit of all. The next Landsat satellite is scheduled to launch in December 2012.