Week 17: A double life

I would like to cut the money crap and mainly write down what I have done academically in this week (what's remaining? Let's see...).

My supervisors always tell me that I should try to use some RS technologies to get a panorama of the area being studied, while observing with my own eyes the "ground truths" -- not only ground truth in RS terms, but also what cannot be observed from above -- how people actually interact with others and the environment.  This is an attractive idea, I think.  Among all possible sensors and images sources, my supervisor speaks highly of CORONA -- the KH series military satellite B/W photographs taken in 1960s and 1970s, which were declassified only a few years ago.  My personal question about using this image source is that how I can use this to identify vegetation changes, as I cannot validate the result of interpretation (the ground truth only existed 40 years ago) and cannot tell what are grassland on the image.  I have read some articles on the utilisation of CORONA images.  It seems that texture of the image can be used in classification.  Maybe if I can use them along with LANDSAT ETM images and ground observation I can get some high-resolution results.

Bringing an interpreter to the field is not impossible but seems will not bring much benefit to my study, not counting the aid in communication.  It should be considered as a last resort only.  I am trying to learn some Tibetan myself though I cannot tell how much progress I can make before I set off to the field.  But learning it is helpful anyway for anyone studying pastoralism.