Faculty
Thomas D. Frank
- Associate Professor of Geography and
- Director, Spatial Data Analysis Laboratory
- Ph.D. 1979, University of Utah
- Research interests:
- Biophysical remote sensing,
- geographic information systems,
- arid lands studies.
- Office: 321 Davenport Hall
- Phone: 333-7248
- E-mail: tdfrank@uiuc.edu
Thomas Frank has research interests in modelling environmental factors that control vegetation distributions in mountain and desert environments of the western U.S. His research has focused on (1) issues of mapping natural vegetation with remote sensing systems, (2) understanding fundamental biophysical-spectral relationships for desert shrub-grass communities, (3) developing change detection methods to monitor desert landscapes, and (4) studying the relationship between vegetation community distributions and environmental and topographic controls in alpine tundra and subalpine forests of the Colorado Rocky Mountain Front Range.
More recently, his research has turned to studying questions about the spatial and temporal variability of the earth's albedo. This research is attempting to measure components of the earth's energy balance over large geographic regions. Remote sensing and geographic information systems are being applied (1) to determine the underlying causes of variation in the earth's albedo, (2) to develop remote sensing methods to measure absolute changes in the earth's albedo accounting for atmospheric and land surface conditions, and (3) to assess the spatial and temporal scales at which albedo variation can be measured over large regions.
Courses
- Geography 476 Environmental Applications of GIS
- Geography 477 Introduction to Remote Sensing
- Geography 478 Techniques of Remote Sensing Image Analysis
Recent Publications
Articles and Proceedings
Frank, T. D., Tweddale, S. A., and Lenschow, S. J., Non-Destructive Estimation of Canopy Gap Fractions ans Shrub Canopy Volume of Dominant Shrub Species in the Mojave Desert, Journal of Terramechanics. Special issue: Assessing the impact of military vehicle traffic on natural areas - Edited by A. Anderson, A. Palazzo, P. Ayers, J. Fermi, S. Shoop. Vol 42/3-4 pp 231-244.
Frank, T. D., and Tweddale, S. A., The Effect of Spatial Resolution on Measurement of Vegetation Cover in Three Mojave Desert Shrub Communities, forthcoming, Journal of Arid Environments, Special Issue on the Mojave Desert.
Tweddale, S. A. and Frank. T. D., A Procedure to Extrapolate Vegetation Cover Estimates Over Large Arid and Semi-arid Regions Using Multiple Spatial Resolution Imagery, forthcoming, GeoCarta.
Frank, T. D., S. A. Tweddale and D. E. Knapp, 1994. Variability of at-satellite of surface reflectance from Landsat TM and NOAA AVHRR in Death Valley National Monument, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing., Vol. 60., No. 10, pp.1259-1266.
Stohr, C., Frank, T. D., and others, 1994. Classification of depressions in landfill covers using uncalibrated thermal-infrared imagery, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, Vol .60, No. 8, pp. 1019-1028.
Frank, T. D., 1988. Mapping dominant vegetation communities in the Colorado Rocky Mountain Front Range with Landsat TM, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, Vol. 54, No. 12, pp. 1727-1734.
Agbu, P. A. and T. D. Frank, 1988. Quantification of the improvement in soil mapping using SPOT HRV over Landsat MSS imagery, in The World in Space, American Society for Photogrammetry, St. Louis, March 1988, p. 191-197.
Final Report, NASA contract NAS5-28781, 1988. Interpreting Forest Biome Productivity Utilizing Nested Scales of Image Resolution and Biogeographical Analysis, with L. Iverson and L. Cook, Illinois Natural History Survey , J. Olson and R. Graham, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Y. Ke, Department of Geography.
Frank, T. D. and S. A. Isard, 1986. Alpine vegetation classification using high resolution aerial imagery and topoclimatic index values, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, Vol. 52, No. 3, pp. 381-388.
Frank, T. D., 1985. Remote sensing land quality changes in arid and semiarid environments: A Review, Annals of Arid Zone, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 211-217.
Frank, T. D. and C. E. Thorn, 1985. Stratifying alpine tundra for geomorphic studies using digitized aerial imagery, Arctic and Alpine Research, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 179-188.
Frank, T. D., 1985. Differentiating semiarid environments using Landsat reflectance indexes, Professional Geographer, Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 36-46.
Frank, T. D., 1984. The effect of change in vegetation cover and erosion patterns on albedo and texture of Landsat images in a semiarid environment, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 74, No. 3, pp. 393-407.
Frank, T. D., 1984. Assessing change in the surficial character of a semiarid environment with Landsat residual images, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, Vol. 50, No. 4, pp. 471-480.
Frank, T. D., 1983. Albedo - texture model for detecting change in semiarid environments using Landsat multispectral scanner data, in Proceedings Fall Technical Conference, American Society for Photogrammetry, Falls Church, Virginia.
Frank, T. D., 1981. A comprehensive inventory of Illinois stream characteristics, Remote Sensing Inputs to Geographic Information Systems in the 1980's, American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Falls Church, Virginia, pp. 393 - 401.
Frank, T. D., 1981. Control of a comprehensive geo-data base with an electronic coordinate digitizer, Machine Processing of Remotely-sensed data, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, pp. 497-504.
Frank, T. D., R. M. McCoy, and N. S. Van Pelt, 1977. The application of remotely-sensed data to regional drainage basin analyses, Great Plains - Rocky Mountain Geographical Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 220-227.
Book Reviews
Digital Cartography, for Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Introduction to remote sensing by James B. Campbell, Professional Geographer, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 472-473.
Geography in America, (C. J. Willmott and G. L. Gaile, eds.), Remote Sensing Chapter (J. Jensen, ed.), June 1988.