12:30 PM - 1:15 PM ET | Tribal Lunch Panel
Collaborative Approaches to the Use of Earth Observations in Indigenous Communities
Moderators: Nikki Tulley, University of Arizona Department of Environmental Science and
Amber Jean McCullum, BAERI/NASA Ames Research Center
- Crystal Tulley-Cordova, Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources
- James Rattling Leaf Sr., Geo Indigenous Alliance
- Forrest Melton, NASA Ames Cooperative for Research in Earth Science and Technology (ARC-CREST)
- Dawn White, Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission
- Carlee McClellan, Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources
The use of Earth Observations (EO) within Indigenous communities is increasingly becoming a vital part of holistic and culturally relevant approaches to water and land management. Engagement and co-development of geospatial tools that focus on the intersection between Indigenous Traditional Knowledge and Earth System Science serve as a model for effective, respectful, and reciprocal relationships among scientists, decision-makers, and tribal nations. This panel discussion will highlight efforts to increase the Indigenous geospatial community of practice, such as the GEO Indigenous Alliance and NASA’s Indigenous Peoples Capacity Building Initiative, as well as highlight specific geospatial and cloud-based water and land management tools that have been co-developed to meet the needs of Indigenous communities such as the Navajo Nation Drought Severity Evaluation Tool (DSET) and a case-study with the OpenET data portal. Discussions will center around best practices, challenges, and pathways forward for sustained relationships and use of EO data within Indigenous communities.