GLOBE Observer Land Cover: Getting Started

In many parts of the world, mosquitoes are more than just a summertime nuisance. Their ability to carry and spread disease to humans causes millions of deaths every year. (World Health Organization). Using the GLOBE Observer Mosquito Habitat Mapper, citizen scientists will be able to augment broad scale satellite-based research with targeted ground-based observations at a high level of granularity.“Satellites don’t see mosquitoes,” says Dr. Assaf Anyamba, a scientist using satellite data to study mosquitoes at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. “However, satellites provide us observation platforms from which to monitor the environmental variables that indicate where mosquito populations can flourish. This helps us identify areas where disease can emerge.”Learn how to use GLOBE Observer to take Mosquito Habitat Mapper observations in your own community! Submit your own observations, even if larvae are not found in the mosquito habitat.“By generating local, ground-based data with the help of citizen scientists, the app gives scientists supplementary data as they model mosquito population outbreaks,” says Dr. Rusty Low of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Arlington, Virginia, one of the NASA-funded organizations that helped develop the Mosquito Habitat Mapper.To learn more about GLOBE Observer and Mosquito Habitat Mapper, visit the GLOBE Observer website. Underwater Lights by Wally Gagel [ASCAP] Universal Production Music For More InformationSee [https://observer.globe.gov/](https://observer.globe.gov/)

Nearly every aspect of our lives is fundamentally tied to the land on which we live. The homes that shelter us are resting on the land. Cities offer locations that bring people together; farms feed us; forests help to keep us cool, provide us with oxygen, building materials, and the joys of recreation; rivers and lakes yield fresh water to drink; and different kinds of land cover provide habitats for a diversity of wildlife. When land covers change, our health and well-being, economies, and environments are all affected.Citizens using GLOBE Observer can observe land cover in much greater detail and more frequently than scientists can using satellite data alone. Furthermore, some types of land cover such as crops or some kinds of urban areas can be difficult to define based on satellite data alone, and citizen scientists’ observations can help.GLOBE Observer data isn Universal Production Music For More InformationSee [https://observer.globe.gov/](https://observer.globe.gov/)