About Us

The Texas Geospatial Extension Program was established in March of 2005. The program joined a national network of geospatial extension programs in 14 other states. The goal of the Texas program is to increase statewide capacity for applying geospatial technologies to the management of natural resources in Texas. The program is led by a Geospatial Extension Specialist (GES) from Texas Cooperative Extension (TCE), with joint participation from the Texas Space Grant Consortium (TSGC), and the Texas Sea Grant Program (TSGP).

The Texas programs mission is to facilitate the partnerships of geospatial talents from Land, Sea, and Space programs in order to provide services, education, increased understanding, and tools to the states citizens for natural resource enhancement.

The Geospatial Extension Specialist (GES) acts as a knowledge broker, or the two-way conduit between research, applications development and practice. We build on existing Earth science capabilities, which include Earth observations from space, modeling and systems engineering, geographic information systems (GIS), the global positioning system (GPS) and spatial decision support systems (SDSS).

Issues of statewide and national importance to be addressed include rural land use change, management and monitoring of invasive plant species, and coastal watershed management.

The objectives of the program are to 1) expand the workforce trained in geospatial technologies by training County Extension Agents and other Natural Resource professionals; 2) expand the existing system for transferring geospatial data to users at the local level; 3) increase geospatial technology and natural resource literacy by developing school curriculum enrichment materials for teaching environmental systems; and 4) actively support research and demonstration projects that utilize satellite imagery and other remotely sensed data to address natural resource management issues.

Program Support and Funding

The national Geospatial Extension Program was initiated through a partnership between the USDA, NOAA, and NASA. The cooperative agreement established funding for creating a new type of specialist within the Cooperative Extension service who would work to bring forward appropriate geospatial tools and technologies from Land Grant, Sea Grant, and Space Grant to serve the public needs. This network of specialists (NGTEN) is tasked with addressing the need to involve and empower the user in Earth systems science and geospatial applications.