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The spatial resolution on the NOAA satellite images is one square kilometer, while the more recent NASA data is down to 250 meters, enough to show vegetation condition without violating people's privacy. Hutchinson says the capability of the site is somewhere between weather information that is not very site-specific, and field monitoring that is quite site-specific. "This is something in the middle that can bridge those two scales," he suggests.

Hutchinson also notes that by making these data available to everyone, including landowners, researchers, students, and the general public, RangeView provides a fresh perspective on the condition of vegetation cover that can improve dialogue between ranchers, state and federal natural resource managers, environmental organizations, and regulators.

NASA's Office of Earth Science with funds managed by Raytheon supported the development of RangeView. Begun in 1999, the site continues to be adapted and modified to suit its target audiences, even though funding from NASA has ended. "A new and more powerful visualization engine called GeoDIVA is now powering the Web site," says Marsh, who credits an "extremely innovative, insightful, and dedicated software development team made-up of both staff and students."

From the very beginning, the research team worked closely with stakeholders to develop the site. Ranchers and members of 25 agencies participated in outlining their needs. Additionally, the OALS group asked a marketing firm, Marketing Intelligence LLC, to help them understand their clients. Run by Kapil Jain, a former UA professor, the firm segmented the audience to find out who might be an early adopter. This research has helped Hutchinson, Orr, and Marsh understand what promotes or impedes the adoption of technology such as RangeView.

"Natural resource managers, including ranchers, rarely have the time or necessary training to fully exploit the potential of geospatial technology," Orr says. "We had to start from scratch, focusing on needs, and bridging gaps to enhance access, overcome technical barriers, and empower users."

Groups involved from the very beginning included the State Cartographer's Office, the State Land Department, Arizona Game and Fish, University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, and the Hopi Tribe. During the second phase of the project the U.S. Forest Service joined in, along with the Bureau of Land Management, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, and the Arizona Cattlegrowers' Association. The third group of organizations comprised the Arizona State Parks, Arizona Department of Transportation, and The Navajo Nation.

"This initiative is an example of efforts to fulfill the land grant mission of The University of Arizona," Orr explains. "Expressed succinctly as 'science for society,' this involves both outreach and 'inreach'."

"It's all based on relationships," Hutchinson says. The research and development is proceeding simultaneously with the testing and teaching of RangeView out in the community.

"As soon as we had it close, we made the Web site available online," Marsh says. "RangeView became the centerpiece of a geospatial Cooperative Extension program that has been incorporated into vegetation monitoring, watershed management and invasive species mitigation workshops offered across Arizona."

Finding out that RangeView allows a person to zoom in on any familiar geographic area often trumps qualms users may have about learning a new computer application.

"Our members are so familiar with the land. When you get them looking at a view of it from space, they forget they're using a computer mouse and want to get that cursor arrow on their ranch," says Doc Lane, director of natural resources for the Arizona Cattlemen's Association and Arizona Wool Producers Association. "You'd be amazed how quickly people forget they're using a computer and connect directly with their ranch on the screen. This is one of the few times I've seen that we could really translate up-to-the-minute research into our current operation."

At the end of 2005 the RangeView team enlisted Marketing Intelligence to conduct a survey of the actual impact RangeView has had for natural resource management agency personnel, extension agents, educators, and ranchers in their daily operations. There were a total of 216 respondents to the Web-based survey. Of those, 96 percent of agency personnel and all of the ranchers reported that RangeView provides additional information that either complements or is used in conjunction with other existing data. According to Marsh, the survey was very encouraging — a strong majority of the agency personnel and ranchers who responded indicated that by incorporating RangeView into their work they could save time and make better decisions.

In addition to research and Cooperative Extension programs, RangeView is supporting graduate and undergraduate student research in a diverse set of programs, including range science, wildlife science, the arid lands resource sciences interdisciplinary doctoral program, mathematics, international studies, and geography and regional development. The UA/NASA Space Grant Undergraduate Research Program helped identify a number of top undergraduates who conducted research, contributed to computer programming, or helped in Cooperative Extension educational programming on the project.

"These undergraduates get a real research and development experience while they're going to school," Marsh says. "They are face-to-face with the people who benefit, which doesn't usually happen."

The RangeView team is now working on directly linking the multi-temporal vegetation greenness data to information collected on the ground, something Lane agrees is valuable.

"It would give us the opportunity to correlate ground-truthing with what we're seeing on the satellite," he says. "This technology has such huge implications for the future."