Earth Data Analysis Center signs contract with Navajo Nation

The Navajo Nation and The University of New Mexico's Earth Data Analysis Center announced a multi-faced partnership on Friday that could serve as a guiding light for Indigenous and rural communities across the country.

EDAC and the Navajo Department of Transportation will come together to collaborate on a web-based transportation portal for the Navajo Nation, tailored to the unique needs of the Nation as part of an effort by Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren to improve infrastructure across the 27,000 square miles that make up the Nation.

"This is a great time for UNM, which has got a wonderful program here, to partner with the Navajo Department of Transportation and really uplift and help the Navajo Nation in terms of trying to address transportation problems and solutions that are direly needed across the Navajo Nation," Nygren said. "One of the things I'm most proud about is that UNM is stepping up to the plate, UNM is here to help us, here to support now and into the future."

"I think this project is really going to help us redefine how we look at rural transportation challenges, rural transportation issues in both rural communities and on Indigenous nations across the country," Nygren said.

Anjanette Owens, who works as a compliance manager for Navajo DOT, and Su Zhang, the associate director of EDAC and an associate professor of geology at UNM, collaborated closely as the project turned from an idea into something more substantial.

"This started with conversations between Anjanette and me over the transportation issues that the Navajo Nation is facing and we started brainstorming how to solve them," Zhang said. "The first step of that was, we need the data. We want to be doing data driven decision making, so that will start with the data that they've already collected and go from there."

Zhang, who earned a Ph.D. from UNM in 2017, said that EDAC will be able to use existing technologies, such as those involved in the department's New Mexico Crash Mapping Data Portal, as well as the live shuttle tracking that is available to students and faculty on campus.

"The second phase when we go from there will be, like the president mentioned, that real time data visualization and access to the people of the Nation," Zhang said. "The third phase we're talking about the flyover project, collecting aerial photography, airborne LiDAR data and with that data we'll be able to solve the challenges that they are facing."

Zhang mentioned housing development and overgrazing as specific problems that the organization has in mind to be able to tackle down the road once they have been able to collect and analyze the data.

EDAC will turn to UNM alumnus Tyler Eshelman to head the project. Eshelman, who began work at the center as a student employee, said that he and his team are looking forward to getting going on the project.

"It's exciting, it should be a very interesting project, Eshelman said. "We already have a pretty good idea of where we want to start and the technologies we want to use. We're looking forward to getting to collaborate on this."