Opera Dynamic Surface Water extents for Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (DSWX-HLS) validation activities
Nicholas Arena, Grace Bato, David Bekaert, Matthew Bonnema, Steven Chan, Bruce Chapman, John Jones, Alexander L. Handwerger, Alex Lewandowski, Charlie Marshak, Simran Sangha, Karthik Venkataramani
2023, Conference Paper
We present the validation methodology and results of Dynamic Surface Water eXtent from Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (DSWx-HLS). The DSWx-HLS product is the first of the DSWx suite, comprised of products each which map water from Earth Observation optical and SAR satellites. We detail the generation of high-resolution (3 m) validation...
Change-point models for identifying behavioral transitions in wild animals
K.P. Gundermann, Duane R. Diefenbach, W. David Walter, A Corondi, J.E. Banfield, B.D. Wallingford, D.P. Stainbrook, C.S. Rosenberry, F.E. Buderman
2023, Movement Ecology (11)
Animal behavior can be difficult, time-consuming, and costly to observe in the field directly. Innovative modeling methods, such as hidden Markov models (HMMs), allow researchers to infer unobserved animal behaviors from movement data, and implementations often assume that transitions between states occur multiple times. However, some...
An integrated framework for examining groundwater vulnerability in the Mekong River Delta region
Kathryn Powlen, Saira M. Haider, Kyle W. Davis, Nina Burkardt, Sachin D. Shah, Stephanie Romanach, Matthew E. Andersen
2023, PLoS ONE (10)
The Mekong River provides water, food security, and many other valuable benefits to the more than 60 million Southeast Asian residents living within its basin. However, the Mekong River Basin is increasingly stressed by changes in climate, land cover, and infrastructure. These changes can affect water...
Seasonal and elevational differences by sex in capture rate of ʻōpeʻapeʻa (Lasiurus semotus) on Hawai‘i Island
Julia P. S. Hoeh, Aaron A. Aguirre, Flor A. Calderon, Sean P. Casler, Sarah G. Ciarrachi, Karen Courtot, Kristina Montoya-Aiona, Corinna A. Pinzari, P. Marcos Gorresen
2023, Pacific Science (77) 1-26
The study of nocturnally active bats is difficult even for those species that seasonally congregate. This challenge is particularly acute for ‘ōpe‘ape‘a (Hawaiian hoary bat; Lasiurus semotus) because of its solitary foliage-roosting behavior. Yet surveys are essential for conservation and management of this endangered species and only land mammal endemic to...
Bayesian weighting of climate models based on climate sensitivity
Elias Massoud, Huikyo Lee, Adam Terando, Michael Wehner
2023, Communications Earth & Environment (4)
Using climate model ensembles containing members that exhibit very high climate sensitivities to increasing CO2 concentrations can result in biased projections. Various methods have been proposed to ameliorate this ‘hot model’ problem, such as model emulators or model culling. Here, we utilize Bayesian Model Averaging as a...
Restructuring and serving web-accessible streamflow data from the NOAA National Water Model historic simulations
J. Michael Johnson, David L. Blodgett, Keith C. Clarke, Jon Pollak
2023, Nature, Scientific Data (10)
In 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration deployed the first iteration of an operational National Water Model (NWM) to forecast the water cycle in the continental United States. With many versions, an hourly, multi-decadal historic simulation is made available to the public. In all released...
Regional crustal structure of Indonesia from receiver functions
Ying Zhang, Walter D. Mooney
2023, Tectonophysics (865)
Characterizing the crustal structure of Indonesia is important to gain a better understanding of its geodynamic evolution and improve seismic hazard assessments in the area. However, a unified crustal model of the entire Indonesian region and its surroundings is lacking. We present new maps of crustal thickness and bulk Vp/Vs ratio...
Comparing methods to estimate feral burro abundance
Jacob D. Hennig, Kathryn A. Schoenecker
2023, Wildlife Society Bulletin (47)
Obtaining precise and unbiased estimates of feral burro (Equus asinus) abundance in the western United States is challenging due to their cryptic pelage and the rugged terrain they inhabit. Management agencies employ helicopter-based, simultaneous double-observer sightability surveys (hereafter denoted as DOS) to estimate abundance of burros; but the DOS method...
Alternative measures of trait–niche relationships: A test on dispersal traits in saproxylic beetles
Ryan C. Burner, Jörg G. Stephan, Lukas Drag, Mária Potterf, Tone Birkemoe, Juha Siitonen, Jörg Müller, Otso Ovaskainen, Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson, Tord Snäll
2023, Ecology and Evolution (13)
Functional trait approaches are common in ecology, but a lack of clear hypotheses on how traits relate to environmental gradients (i.e., trait–niche relationships) often makes uncovering mechanisms difficult. Furthermore, measures of community functional structure differ in their implications, yet inferences are seldom compared among...
Ecological associations of non-native ungulates on the Hawaiian Island of Lāna‘i
Steven C. Hess, Kevin W. Brinck, Christina R Leopold, Jacob Muise, Jonathan Sprague
2023, Human-Wildlife Interactions (17)
Sustained-yield hunting of introduced ungulates in the Hawaiian Islands often conflicts with the conservation of native species, but there is little reliable data to guide effective management. European mouflon sheep (Ovis musimon; mouflon) and axis deer (Axis axis; deer) were introduced on the island of Lāna‘i to provide additional...
Landslide initiation thresholds in data-sparse regions: Application to landslide early warning criteria in Sitka, Alaska, USA
Annette Patton, Lisa Luna, Josh J. Roering, Aaron Jacobs, Oliver Korup, Benjamin B. Mirus
2023, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (23) 3261-3284
Probabilistic models to inform landslide early warning systems often rely on rainfall totals observed during past events with landslides. However, these models are generally developed for broad regions using large catalogs, with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of landslide occurrences. This study evaluates strategies for training landslide forecasting models with...
Inter-comparison of measurements of inorganic chemical components in precipitation from NADP and CAPMoN at collocated sites in the USA and Canada during 1986–2019
Jian Feng, Amanda Cole, Gregory A. Wetherbee, Kulbir Banwait
2023, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (195)
Wet deposition monitoring is a critical part of the long-term monitoring of acid deposition, which aims to assess the ecological impact of anthropogenic emissions of SO2 and NOx. In North America, long-term wet deposition has been monitored through two national networks: the Canadian Air and Precipitation Monitoring Network (CAPMoN) and the...
Variability in terrestrial characteristics and erosion rates on the Alaskan Beaufort Sea coast
Anastasia Piliouras, Benjamin M. Jones, Tabatha Clevenger, Ann E. Gibbs, Joel C. Rowland
2023, Environmental Research Letters (18)
Arctic coastal environments are eroding and rapidly changing. A lack of pan-Arctic observations limits our ability to understand controls on coastal erosion rates across the entire Arctic region. Here, we capitalize on an abundance of geospatial and remotely sensed data, in addition to model output, from the...
Advances in wildlife abundance estimation using pedigree reconstruction
Elias Rosenblatt, Scott Creel, Katherina Gieder, James Murdoch, Therese M. Donovan
2023, Ecology and Evolution (13)
The conservation and management of wildlife populations, particularly for threatened and endangered species are greatly aided with abundance, growth rate, and density measures. Traditional methods of estimating abundance and related metrics represent trade-offs in effort and precision of estimates. Pedigree reconstruction is an emerging,...
The Mojave section of the San Andreas fault (California), 1: Shaping the terrace stratigraphy of Littlerock Creek through the competition between rapid strike-slip faulting and lateral stream erosion over the last 40ka.
Adrien Moulin, Eric Cowgill, Katherine M. Scharer, Devin McPhillips, Arjun Heimsath
2023, Geochemistry, Geophysics, and Geosystems (24)
To determine the post-40 ka slip-rate along the Mojave section of the San Andreas Fault (MSAF) we re-analyze the sedimentary record preserved where Little Rock (LR) Creek flows across the fault. At this location, interaction between the northeast-flowing stream and right-lateral fault has resulted in the abandonment and...
The 1886 Charleston, South Carolina, Earthquake: Relic railroad offset reveals rupture
Roger Bilham, Susan E. Hough
2023, The Seismic Record (3) 278-288
In the absence of documented surface rupture during the 1 September 1886 Charleston earthquake, there has been considerable speculation about the location and mechanism of the causative fault. We use an inferred coseismic offset of the South Carolina Railroad and additional numerical constraints to develop an elastic deformation model—a west‐dipping...
BatTool: Projecting bat populations facing multiple stressors using a demographic model
Ashton M. Wiens, Amber Schorg, Jennifer Szymanski, Wayne E. Thogmartin
2023, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (23)
Bats provide ecologically and agriculturally important ecosystem services but are currently experiencing population declines caused by multiple environmental stressors, including mortality from white-nose syndrome and wind energy development. Analyses of the current and future health and viability of these species may support conservation management decision making....
Snowpack relative permittivity and density derived from near-coincident lidar and ground-penetrating radar
Randall Bonnell, Daniel McGrath, Andrew Hedrick, Ernesto Trujillo, Tate Meehan, Keith Williams, Hans-Peter Marshall, Graham A. Sexstone, John W, Fulton, Michael Ronayne, Steven R. Fassnacht, Ryan Webb, Katherine Hale
2023, Hydrological Processes (37)
Depth-based and radar-based remote sensing methods (e.g., lidar, synthetic aperture radar) are promising approaches for remotely measuring snow water equivalent (SWE) at high spatial resolution. These approaches require snow density estimates, obtained from in-situ measurements or density models, to calculate SWE. However, in-situ measurements...
Science to support conservation action in a large river system: The Willamette River, Oregon, USA
Rebecca L. Flitcroft, Luke Whitman, James White, J. Rose Wallick, Laurel E. Stratton Garvin, Cassandra Smith, Robert Plotnikoff, Michael Mulvey, Tobias J. Kock, Krista Jones, Peter Gruendike, Carolyn Gombert, Guillermo Giannico, Andrew Dutterer, Daniel G. Brown, Hannah Barrett, Robert M. Hughes
2023, Water Biology and Security (2)
Management and conservation efforts that support the recovery and protection of large rivers are daunting, reflecting the complexity of the challenge and extent of effort (in terms of policy, economic investment, and spatial extent) needed to afford measurable change. These...
Growth performance of Rainbow Trout in reservoir tributaries and implications for steelhead growth potential above Skagit River dams
Benjamin Lorenz Jensen, Rachelle Carina Johnson, Jeffrey J. Duda, Carl O. Ostberg, Tessa Julianne Code, Jonathan H Mclean, Karl D. Stenberg, Kimberly Larsen, Marshal S. Hoy, David Beauchamp
2023, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (43) 1427-1446
ObjectiveIn the Pacific Northwest (USA), Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp. populations have been declining significantly for decades, prompting stakeholders to respond with a variety of conservation and restoration measures. One such measure being considered in the Skagit River basin (Washington, USA) is the introduction of steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss (anadromous Rainbow Trout) above...
An early warning signal for grassland degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau
Qiuan Zhu, Huai Chen, Changhui Peng, Jinxun Liu, Shilong Piao, Jin-Sheng He, Shiping Wang, Xinquan Zhao, Jiang Zhang, Xiuqin Fang, Jiaxin Jin, Qi-En Yang, Liliang Ren, Yanfen Wang
2023, Nature Communications (14)
Intense grazing may lead to grassland degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, but it is difficult to predict where this will occur and to quantify it. Based on a process-based ecosystem model, we define a productivity-based stocking rate threshold that induces extreme grassland degradation to assess whether...
The enigmatic Rattlesnake Knoll, Spring Valley, east-central Nevada—A geophysical perspective
Edward A. Mankinen, Peter D. Rowley, Edwin H. McKee
2023, Open-File Report 2023-1002
Rattlesnake Knoll is a small, 30-meter-high mound of igneous breccia in the center of Spring Valley, east-central Nevada. In the past, researchers have disagreed as to whether the unusual-looking outcrop is intrusive or volcanic. The breccia possesses a normal magnetic polarity, but this is not apparent in aeromagnetic survey data....
Application of the Stream Salmonid Simulator (S3) model to assess fall Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) production in the American River, California
John M. Plumb, Russell W. Perry, Tyson W. Hatton, Collin D. Smith, John M. Hannon
2023, Open-File Report 2023-1060
Executive SummaryAnadromous fish returning to the lower American River are restricted to 36 kilometers of free-flowing river between Nimbus Dam and American River’s confluence with the Sacramento River, California. Salmon in the American River provide an important freshwater recreational fishery. However, annual salmon production in the American River in recent...
Bioavailability and toxicity models of copper to freshwater life: The state of regulatory science
Christopher A. Mebane
2023, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (42) 2529-2563
Efforts to incorporate bioavailability adjustments into regulatory water quality criteria in the United States have included four major procedures: hardness-based single-linear regression equations, water-effect ratios (WERs), biotic ligand models (BLMs), and multiple-linear regression models (MLRs) that use dissolved organic carbon, hardness, and pH. The...
LANDFIRE
Jennifer L. Long, Timothy D. Hatten
2023, Fact Sheet 2023-3044
Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools (LANDFIRE) is a key national geospatial data source for strategic fire and resource management planning and analysis. LANDFIRE is the first complete, nationally consistent collection of more than 25 geospatial layers, databases, and ecological models at a 30-meter resolution that describe disturbance, vegetation,...
