Coming up ROSES: UTC scientists land NASA research award

Associate Professor Azad Hossain is an environmental geoscientist in the UTC Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science. Photo by Angela Foster.

For the first time, researchers at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga have received the Research Initiation Award (RIA) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Associate Professor Azad Hossain, an environmental geoscientist in the UTC Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science, was the principal investigator on award funding of $299,998 from NASA for the project titled “Remote Sensing of Water Quality in the Tennessee River.”

Professor Hong Qin, head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and University of Mississippi Senior Research Scientist Xiaobo Chao were co-investigators.

According to UTC Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research Meredith Perry, “landing the award from NASA is a noteworthy accomplishment under any circumstances, but this was especially notable since it was funded on first submission.”

Hossain’s expertise lies in geospatial technology, and the general focus of his research interests are in the geological and environmental applications of GIS, remote sensing and spatial analysis coupled with numerical modeling.

“The name of the grant program is Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science, and we typically call it ROSES. It’s a very prestigious, nationally competitive grant,” said Hossain, who joined the UTC faculty in fall 2016. “I’ve been working with geospatial technology and remote sensing for more than 25 years, and this award is a dream for any scientist who works with satellite and remote sensing.

“I know the significance of this program. I know it’s an elite research program and—with NASA putting UTC’s name on it—it gives me great pride and satisfaction to say, ‘We got it.’”

ROSES, Hossain said, is NASA’s nationally competitive research grant opportunity. The specific two-year RIA provides the foundation to develop research that is competitive, sustainable and productive.

“This research is about estimating water quality in the Tennessee River and using NASA’s satellites,” he explained. “and one of NASA’s signature observation satellite programs called Landsat. The way this research works is that you have satellite images taken every 16 days; to estimate water quality, you have to be in the water right at the same time that the image is being taken. There is no other option.

“So we have those measurements and NASA has their measurements. Then we couple them to develop the model.”

Dr. Azad Hossain

Hossain received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geology/earth science from the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh and master’s and doctoral degrees in geological engineering from the University of Mississippi.

Over his time as a researcher, satellite technology has provided a bird’s eye view of water quality, but understanding inland water bodies like those in the Tennessee River has been tricky. Until recently, there wasn’t a way to use satellite images to study water quality in this region.

To change that, Hossain initiated research to explore the potential of remote sensing technology to study surface water quality in the watersheds of Southeast Tennessee using satellite observations coupled with field measurements.

“As a matter of fact, there have been studies of other major rivers in the U.S. using NASA satellites, but nothing had been done on the Tennessee River,” he said. “So that gave me an opportunity.”

The project involves fine-tuning a model, which the researchers recently developed and published, to measure turbidity by adding more data from different times of the year and weather conditions. Turbidity tells how clear the Tennessee River water is.

The researchers will then create models to estimate Chlorophyll-a (an essential water quality indicator) and use Google Earth Engine to review historical data. By analyzing this info, they hope to spot trends in how these water quality factors change over time and across different areas.

Hossain pointed out the interdisciplinary backgrounds of the project’s three leading researchers.

Dr. Hong Qin

“I’m a geologist and environmental scientist with expertise in geospatial technology. Dr. Hong Qin is a computer scientist and a biologist. And Dr. Chao, the external collaborator from the University of Mississippi, is a water resource engineer with expertise in water quality,” Hossain said.

This project is significant for Chattanooga because the city sits right on the Tennessee River, has grown substantially during the last several decades and has become the center of a series of urbanized sub-watersheds. The environmental impacts of this growth, especially the quality of surface water, have become a significant concern for the sustainable development of this area.

The successful development of the project will provide powerful resources to aid in the study of the impacts of land use and land cover change on the water quality in the Tennessee River. In addition, Hossain said, the project will “create opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to engage in cutting-edge research in remote sensing of water quality.”

“One of the requirements of this project was to show that I have a strong involvement of undergraduate students and support for graduate students,” he said. “I’m now in the process of recruiting students so that we can get them on board as soon as possible.”

Hossain said he was grateful to Ashley Ledford from the UTC Office of Research and Special Programs (ORSP). “She has been phenomenal with help and she actually sent me the email to look at this opportunity.”

He also thanked those who provided some of the early funding support he received after arriving at UTC, including awards from ORSP and the SimCenter (now the UTC Research Institute).

In addition to his work at UTC, Hossain serves as mid-south region vice president for the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and is a guest editor for Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute’s “Remote Sensing” journal.