ASU/NASA Acres team presents community-driven food-security and water-resources visualization project for Maui

A team from Arizona State University and NASA Acres presented to the Board on May 21 a food-security and water-resources data-visualization project they have been developing for Maui. The team included Professor Hanna Kerner and research professors Anna Tarano and Alyssa Whitcraft; Shay Chan Hodges represented community partnership from Haiku, Maui.

The presenters described community-driven approaches, technical tools and data sources. Professor Kerner said the project uses public NASA data and some commercial products through NASA partnerships, and the team has created behind-the-scenes land-use and crop layers they use to filter aggregated public displays. She said community feedback discouraged public release of very fine-resolution crop-location maps because of privacy and theft concerns: "people did not want them to develop 10-meter resolution products or maps of where crops were growing and make those assets public because people had concerns about privacy, theft, and various issues." Kerner said those layers are used internally to improve aggregated visualizations rather than published as public maps.

Vice Chair Ekolu Lindsey emphasized the need for community engagement and suggested the project consider connecting terrestrial and ocean datasets and creating local career pathways so community members can remain and work on these systems. Member John Helly asked about access to radar, altimetry and other remote-sensing products; Kerner said the team does have access to radar and other satellite data but has focused public displays on imagery and more interpretable products.

Why this matters: the project aims to make data on food security and water resources more useful to local stakeholders while respecting community privacy concerns and creating pathways for community involvement.