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Earth Imaging Glossary
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" S "
SAHEL
A geographic region of semi-arid lands bordering the southern edge of the Sahara Desert in
Africa. It is characterized by a long dry season and a short wet season from July to
September.
SAST--Scientific Assessment and Strategy Team
SAST is an interdisciplinary team of senior scientists and engineers from various Federal
Government agencies assigned to assess and report on the damage caused by the flood of
1993 and to provide assistance and advice to Federal officials responsible for making
decisions with respect to the flood recovery in the Upper Mississippi and Missouri River
basin.
SCS--Soil Conservation Service
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Soil Conservation Service changed its name in 1995 to
(NRCS).
SDTS--Spatial Data Transfer Standard
The SDTS was approved in July 1992 as Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)
173. The Standard allows the exchange of digital spatial data between different computer
systems. It provides a solution to the problem of spatial data transfer from the conceptual
level to the details of physical file encoding. Transfer of spatial data involves modeling
spatial data concepts, data structures, and logical physical file structures.
SEASONALLY DISTINCT LAND COVER REGIONS
The concept of seasonally distinct land cover regions is based on the unique phenological
characteristics of different agricultural crops or natural vegetation, such as the time of spring
green-up, magnitude of maximum NDVI (greenness), time of leaf senescence, and seasonal
duration of green periods. These regions, based on both spectral and temporal characteristics,
can be expected to possess relatively homogenous vegetation types and associations, land
use, or mosaics and mixtures of land cover types.
SEMI-ANONYMOUS FTP
The capability for a customer to order a product and take delivery via the Internet using a
password-protected file transfer protocol (FTP) account. Charges vary according to product
requested.
Once payment is received, the customer is notified by email that the password-protected FTP
files are ready for pick up. The email message also contains file access information including
a temporary password and ancillary information including a product disclaimer and
information regarding README files and FTP support.
From the date and time the email is sent from the EROS Data Center, the customer has five
days to retrieve the temporary data files. Any further questions on semi-anonymous FTP
support are to be directed to: Customer Services, EROS Data Center
SHADED RELIEF
Shading added to an image that makes the image appear to have three dimensional aspects.
This type of enhancement is commonly done to satellite images and thematic maps utilizing
digital topographic data to provide the appearance of terrain relief within the image.
SINKS
Interrupted drainage develops on limestone or dolomite beds through the dissolving action of
water on the formation. Consequently, streams can disappear into subterranean caverns, often
not re-emerging until they have traveled underground for a considerable distance. The term
sink (or sinkhole) or karst drainage is sometimes used to describe this unusual stream pattern.
SOIL CLASSIFICATION
The systematic arrangement of soils into groups or categories based on their characteristics.
Broad groupings are made on the basis of general characteristics and subdivisions on the
premise of more detailed differences in specific properties.
SOIL PHASE
A subdivision of a soil classification, usually a soil series or other unit based on
characteristics that affect the use and management of the soil but which do not vary
sufficiently to differentiate it as a separate soil series.
SOIL SLOPE
The degree of deviation of a surface from horizontal that is measured as a percentage, a
numerical ratio, or in degrees.
SOIL TEXTURE
The relative proportions of sand, silt, and clay separates in a soil as described by the classes
of soil texture.
SPACE IMAGING
The U.S. Government transferred commercial sales rights of the Landsat program to the
private sector from September 27, 1985 through July 1, 2001, authorizing a contract with
Space Imaging. The Landsat program involves satellite remote sensing of the Earth's
resources and the dissemination of that data to users worldwide.
Space Imaging is a joint venture/partnership formed by Hughes Aircraft Company and RCA
Corporation.
As of July 1, 2001 the commercial sales rights of the Lansat program were transferred back
to the U.S. Government. All landsat products are now available from the the USGS.
For further information about Space Imaging, contact: Space Imaging
SPECTRAL GAMMA
This is a technique of examining individual wavelengths of gamma radiation of rocks in a
drill hole.
SPHEROID
Mathematical figure closely approaching the geoid in form and size and used as a surface of
reference for geodetic surveys. A reference spheroid or ellipsoid is a spheroid determined by
revolving an ellipse about its shorter (polar) axis and used as a base for geodetic surveys of a
large section of the Earth (such as the Clarke spheroid of 1866 which is used for geodetic
surveys in the United States).
SSURGO--Soil Survey Geographic
The SSURGO data base provides the most detailed level of soils information and was
designed primarily for farm and ranch, landowner/user, township, county, or parish natural
resource planning and management.
STABLE BASE
In cartography, a stable base includes those source materials with a better likelihood for
dimensional stability and longevity than paper (e.g., Mylar or film).
STATSGO--State Soil Geographic
The STATSGO is a State soil geographic data base designed primarily for regional, multi-
State, river basin, State, and multi-county resource planning, management, and monitoring.
These data are not detailed enough to make interpretations at a county level.
STEREO
Involves binocular vision techniques which enables the observer to view imagery
simultaneously from two different perspectives to achieve the mental impression of a three-
dimensional image.
STRANGER
A product format offered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Oregon State Office for
their Western Oregon Digital Data Base (WODDB) system. The format is characterized by
either of the two following scenarios:
For systems where the record length to be written is a power of 2 (256, 512, 1024, etc.), this
can be used as the logical record length on tape, as long as the block size does not exceed
16,384 bytes. An example of this would look like:
Logical record Length = 1024 Blocking Factor = 4 Block Size = 4096
For systems where the record length to be written is not a power of 2, a static record of 80
bytes is used. An example of this would look like:
Logical Record Length = 80 Blocking Factor = 100 (or 200) Block Size = 8000 (or 16000)
SWATH
A swath of data is all data received from a spacecraft on a single pass from acquisition of
signal (AOS) to loss of signal (LOS).
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Glossary Home
Initial content for this Glossary of terms has been graciously supplied by RADARSAT International - www.rsi.ca
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