Details on Locating Illegal Plantings in State and National Parks
| Type | Research Opportunity |
|---|---|
| Project Name | Locating Illegal Plantings in State and National Parks |
| Posted By | Kathryn Leonard (kathryn.leonard@csuci.edu) |
| Additional Faculty Mentors | Ron Rieger |
| Posted | 12/29/2011 2:50 PM |
| Project Website | — |
| Area of Research | Sciences |
| Related Majors |
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| Expected Duration | semester |
| Number of Positions | 4-6 |
| Project Details |
We have been asked to assist the California Air National Guard with locating marijuana groves in our state and national parks. These groves are an illegal crop, often operated by Mexican drug cartels, which create multiple safety problems for U.S. citizens including those who use our parks. In addition these groves do considerable damage to the environment. This includes using extensive amounts of water in water sensitive environments (e.g., Death Valley), adding illegal chemicals to the water which seep back into our ground water, and clearing and/or destroying sensitive plants and animal habitat. The current approach to locating these illegal groves is done by photographing and manually analyzing hundreds of high-resolution pictures. This is a tedious, difficult task further restricted by inadequate staffing. Our proposed research project is to automate the analysis; that is, determine the “best” combination of image processing and pattern recognition techniques, automatically apply these techniques to incoming aerial photographs, and select high likelihood candidate regions for marijuana groves, thus significantly reducing the manpower and time needed to locate these groves. |
| Eligibility Requirements | Must have complete upper division mathematics courses. Experience with programming is a plus, but not necessary. |
| Deadline | 1/27/2012 |
Last modified by Kathryn Leonard at 12/29/2011 2:50 PM
For more information on joining this project please contact Kathryn Leonard (kathryn.leonard@csuci.edu)