A 1.2 billion pixel human-labeled dataset for data-driven classification of coastal environments
Daniel D. Buscombe, Phillipe Alan Wernette, Sharon Fitzpatrick, Jaycee Favela, Evan B. Goldstein, Nicholas Enwright
2023, Scientific Data (10)
The world’s coastlines are spatially highly variable, coupled-human-natural systems that comprise a nested hierarchy of component landforms, ecosystems, and human interventions, each interacting over a range of space and time scales. Understanding and predicting coastline dynamics necessitates frequent observation from imaging sensors on remote sensing...
Adult spawners: A critical period for subarctic Chinook salmon in a changing climate
Kathrine G. Howard, Vanessa R. von Biela
2023, Global Change Biology (29) 1759-1773
Concurrent, distribution-wide abundance declines of some Pacific salmon species, including Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), highlights the need to understand how vulnerability at different life stages to climate stressors affects population dynamics and fisheries sustainability. Yukon River Chinook salmon stocks are among the largest subarctic populations, near...
Local weather and endogenous factors affect the initiation of migration in short- and medium-distance songbird migrants
Theodore J. Zenzal Jr., Darren Johnson, Frank R. Moore, Zoltán Németh
2023, Journal of Avian Biology (2023)
Migratory birds employ a variety of mechanisms to ensure appropriate timing of migration based on integration of endogenous and exogenous information. The cues to fatten and depart from the non-breeding area are often linked to exogenous cues such as temperature or precipitation and the endogenous program....
Simulating debris flow and levee formation in the 2D shallow flow model D-Claw: Channelized and unconfined flow
Ryan P. Jones, Francis K. Rengers, Katherine R. Barnhart, David L. George, Dennis M. Staley, Jason W. Kean
2023, Earth and Space Science (10)
Debris flow runout poses a hazard to life and infrastructure. The expansion of human population into mountainous areas and onto alluvial fans increases the need to predict and mitigate debris flow runout hazards. Debris flows on unconfined alluvial fans can exhibit spontaneous self-channelization through levee formation that...
Invaders at the doorstep: Using species distribution modeling to enhance invasive plant watch lists
Catherine S. Jarnevich, Peder Engelstad, Jillian LaRoe, Brandon Hays, Terri Hogan, Jeremy Jirak, Ian S. Pearse, Janet S. Prevéy, Jennifer Sieraki, Annie Simpson, Jess Wenick, Nicholas Young, Helen R. Sofaer
2023, Ecological Informatics (75)
Watch lists of invasive species that threaten a particular land management unit are useful tools because they can draw attention to invasive species at the very early stages of invasion when early detection and rapid response efforts are often most successful. However, watch lists typically rely on the subjective selection...
A model of transmissivity and hydraulic conductivity from electrical resistivity distribution derived from airborne electromagnetic surveys of the Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer, Midwest USA
Scott Ikard, Burke J. Minsley, James R. Rigby, Wade Kress
2023, Hydrogeology Journal (31) 313-334
Groundwater-flow models require the spatial distribution of the hydraulic conductivity parameter. One approach to defining this spatial distribution in groundwater-flow model grids is to map the electrical resistivity distribution by airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey and establish a petrophysical relation between mean resistivity calculated as a...
Plant community predictions support the potential for big sagebrush range expansion adjacent to the leading edge
T. Martyn, K. Palmquist, John B. Bradford, Daniel Rodolphe Schlaepfer, W.K. Lauenroth
2023, Regional Environmental Change (23)
Big sagebrush ecosystems are widespread across drylands of western North America and provide numerous services, but the abundance of these ecosystems has declined substantially and the future of these ecosystems is uncertain. As a result, characterizing potential areas for expansion of these ecosystems is important. Species...
Identifying building locations in the wildland–urban interface before and after fires with convolutional neural networks
Neda K. Kasraee, Todd Hawbaker, Volker C. Radeloff
2023, International Journal of Wildland Fire (32) 610-621
Background: Wildland–urban interface (WUI) maps identify areas with wildfire risk, but they are often outdated owing to the lack of building data. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can extract building locations from remote sensing data, but their accuracy in WUI areas is unknown. Additionally, CNNs are computationally intensive and technically complex, making...
Drivers of survival of translocated tortoises
Jeremy S Mack, Kristin H. Berry
2023, Journal of Wildlife Management (87)
Translocation of animals, especially for threatened and endangered species, is a currently popular but very challenging activity. We translocated 158 adult Agassiz's desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii), a threatened species, from the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, in the central Mojave Desert in California, USA, to 4 plots as part of...
Incorporating temperature into seepage loss estimates for a large unlined irrigation canal
Ramon C. Naranjo, David Smith, Evan J. Lindenbach
2023, Journal of Hydrology (617)
Quantifying seepage losses from unlined irrigation canals is necessary to improve water use and conservation. The use of heat as a tracer is widely used in quantifying seepage rates across the sediment–water interface. In this study, field observations and two-dimensional numerical models...
Beyond presence mapping: Predicting fractional cover of non-native vegetation in Sentinel-2 imagery using an ensemble of MaxEnt models
Todd M. Preston, Aaron N. Johnston, Kyle Gregory Ebenhoch, Robert H. Diehl
2023, Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation (9) 512-526
Non-native species maps are important tools for understanding and managing biological invasions. We demonstrate a novel approach to extend presence modeling to map fractional cover (FC) of non-native yellow sweet clover Melilotus officinalis in the Northern Great Plains, USA. We used ensembles of MaxEnt models to map FC across landscapes from satellite...
Moving Aircraft River Velocimetry (MARV): Framework and proof-of-concept on the Tanana River
Carl J. Legleiter, Paul J. Kinzel, Mark Laker, Jeff Conaway
2023, Water Resources Research (59)
Information on velocity fields in rivers is critical for designing infrastructure, modeling contaminant transport, and assessing habitat. Although non-contact approaches to measuring flow velocity are well established, these methods assume a stationary imaging platform. This study eliminates this constraint by introducing a framework for moving aircraft river...
A multimodal data fusion and deep learning framework for large-scale wildfire surface fuel mapping
Mohamad Alipour, Inga P. La Puma, Joshua J. Picotte, Kasra Shamsei, Eric Rowell, Adam Watts, Branko Kosovic, Hamed Ebrahimian, Erugrul Taciroglu
2023, Fire (6)
Accurate estimation of fuels is essential for wildland fire simulations as well as decision-making related to land management. Numerous research efforts have leveraged remote sensing and machine learning for classifying land cover and mapping forest vegetation species. In most cases that focused on surface fuel mapping, the spatial scale...
Green turtle movements in the Gulf of Mexico: Tracking reveals new migration corridor and habitat use suggestive of MPA expansion
Margaret Lamont, Allison Benscoter, Kristen Hart
2023, Global Ecology and Conservation (42)
Globally, Marine Protected Areas are an important tool in the conservation of large marine vertebrates. Recent studies have highlighted the use of protected areas by imperiled green turtles (Chelonia mydas) in the southern Gulf of Mexico. To identify and characterize inter-nesting, migratory, and foraging areas...
Juxtaposition of intensive agriculture, vulnerable aquifers, and mixed chemical/microbial exposures in private-well tapwater in northeast Iowa
Paul M. Bradley, Dana W. Kolpin, Darrin A. Thompson, Kristin M. Romanok, Kelly L. Smalling, Sara E. Breitmeyer, Mary C. Cardon, David M. Cwiertny, Nicola Evans, R. William Field, Michael J. Focazio, Laura E. Beane Freeman, Carrie E. Givens, James L. Gray, Gordon L. Hager, Michelle L. Hladik, Jonathan N. Hoffman, Rena R. Jones, Leslie K. Kanagy, Rachael F. Lane, R. Blaine McCleskey, Danielle Medgyesi, Elizabeth Medlock-Kakaley, Shannon M. Meppelink, Michael T. Meyer, Diana A. Stavreva, Mary H. Ward
2023, Environmental Science and Technology: Water (868)
In the United States and globally, contaminant exposure in unregulated private-well point-of-use tapwater (TW) is a recognized public-health data gap and an obstacle to both risk-management and homeowner decision making. To help address the lack of data on broad contaminant exposures in private-well TW...
Subaqueous clinoforms created by sandy wave-supported gravity flows: Lessons from the central California shelf
Elisa Medri, Alexander R. Simms, Jared W. Kluesner, Samuel Y. Johnson, Stuart P. Nishenko, H. Gary Greene, James E. Conrad
2023, Marine Geology (456)
Subaqueous clinoforms are an important yet underappreciated shelf feature. Their origins are typically associated with subaerial deltas but recent work has identified similar features in settings without a significant fluvial source. These other studies have shown that such subaqueous clinoforms, also known as infralittoral prograding wedges (IPWs), are created largely...
Hydrodynamics and habitat interact to structure fish communities within terminal channels of a tidal freshwater delta
Brock Huntsman, Matthew J. Young, Frederick V. Feyrer, Paul Stumpner, Larry R. Brown, Jon R. Burau
2023, Ecosphere (14)
Terminal channels were historically a common feature of tidal delta ecosystems but have become increasingly rare as landscapes have been modified. Tidal hydrodynamics are a defining feature in tidal terminal channel ecosystems from which native aquatic communities have evolved. However, few studies have explored the relationship between fish community structure...
Enhancements to population monitoring of Yellowstone grizzly bears
Frank T. van Manen, Michael Ebinger, Cecily M. Costello, Daniel D. Bjornlie, Justin Clapp, Daniel Thompson, Mark A. Haroldson, Kevin L. Frey, Curtis Hendricks, Jeremy M. Nicholson, Kerry A. Gunther, Katharine R. Wilmot, Hilary Cooley, Jennifer Fortin-Noreus, Pat Hnilicka, Daniel B. Tyers
2023, Ursus (33)
In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, counts of female grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) with cubs-of-the-year (females with cubs) from systematic aerial surveys and opportunistic ground sightings are combined with demographic data to derive annual population estimates. We addressed 2 limitations to the monitoring approach. As part of a rule set, a...
Watershed- and reach-scale drivers of phosphorus retention and release by streambed sediment in a western Lake Erie watershed during summer
Rebecca M. Kreiling, Patrik Mathis Perner, Kenna Jean Breckner, Tanja N. Williamson, Lynn A. Bartsch, James M. Hood, Nathan F. Manning, Laura T. Johnson
2023, Science of the Total Environment (863)
Reducing phosphorus (P) concentrations in aquatic ecosystems, is necessary to improve water quality and reduce the occurrence of harmful cyanobacterial algal blooms. Managing P reduction requires information on the role rivers play in P transport from land to downstream water bodies, but we have...
Changes in habitat suitability for wintering dabbling ducks during dry conditions in the Central Valley of California
Erin E. Conlisk, Kristin B. Byrd, Elliott Matchett, Austen Lorenz, Michael L. Casazza, Gregory H. Golet, Mark D. Reynolds, Kristin A. Sesser, Matthew E. Reiter
2023, Ecosphere (14)
In arid and Mediterranean regions, landscape-scale wetland conservation requires understanding how wildlife responds to dynamic freshwater availability and conservation actions to enhance wetland habitat. Taking advantage of Landsat satellite data and structured and community science bird survey data, we built species distribution models to describe how three duck species, the...
Nest-site selection model for endangered Everglade snail kites to inform ecosystem restoration
Allison Benscoter, Laura D’Acunto, Saira M. Haider, Robert J. Fletcher Jr., Stephanie Romanach
2023, Ecosphere (14)
dictors of nesting for snail kites in south Florida. The results of our modeling indicate that hydrology, percent canopy cover, and proximity to recently burned areas were the most important factors associated with nest-site selection for snail kites. Water depths between 75 and 100 cm, water recession...
Elevation-based probabilistic mapping of irregularly flooded wetlands along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast
Nicholas Enwright, Wyatt C. Cheney, Kristine O. Evans, Hana R. Thurman, Mark S. Woodrey, Auriel Fournier, Dean B. Gesch, Jonathan L. Pitchford, Jason M. Stoker, Stephen C. Medeiros
2023, Remote Sensing of Environment (287)
Irregularly flooded wetlands are found above the mean high water tidal datum and are exposed to tides and saltwater less frequently than daily. These wetlands provide important ecosystem services, such as providing habitat for fish and wildlife, enhancing water quality, ameliorating...
Hydrogeology, land-surface subsidence, and documentation of the Gulf Coast Land Subsidence and Groundwater-Flow (GULF) model, southeast Texas, 1897–2018
J.H. Ellis, Jacob E. Knight, Jeremy T. White, Michelle Sneed, Joseph D. Hughes, Jason K. Ramage, Christopher L. Braun, Andrew Teeple, Linzy K. Foster, Samuel H. Rendon, Justin T. Brandt
2023, Professional Paper 1877
Executive SummaryAs a part of the Texas Water Development Board groundwater availability modeling program, the U.S. Geological Survey developed the Gulf Coast Land Subsidence and Groundwater-Flow model (hereinafter, the “GULF model”) and ensemble to simulate groundwater flow and land-surface subsidence in the northern part of the Gulf Coast aquifer...
Quality of groundwater used for domestic drinking-water supply in the Coachella Valley, 2020
Andrew L. Soldavini, Jennifer S. Harkness, Zeno F. Levy, Miranda S. Fram
2023, Open-File Report 2022-1122
Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water in the Coachella Valley in the desert region of southern California. Although most people in Coachella Valley are served by public drinking-water systems, about 20,000 people rely on private domestic or small-system wells (referred to herein as domestic wells). Recently, the U.S....
Recent history of glacial lake outburst floods, analysis of channel changes, and development of a two-dimensional flow and sediment transport model of the Snow River near Seward, Alaska
Robin A. Beebee
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5099
Snow Lake, a glacially dammed lake on the Snow Glacier near Seward, Alaska, drains rapidly every 14 months–3 years, causing flooding along the Snow River. Highway, railroad, and utility infrastructure on the lower Snow River floodplain is vulnerable to flood damage. Historical hydrology, geomorphology, and two-dimensional hydraulic and sediment transport...
