Delineation of marsh types and marsh-type change in coastal Louisiana for 2007 and 2013
Stephen B. Hartley, Brady R. Couvillion, Nicholas M. Enwright
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5044
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management researchers often require detailed information regarding emergent marsh vegetation types (such as fresh, intermediate, brackish, and saline) for modeling habitat capacities and mitigation. In response, the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management produced a detailed change classification of...
Estimating evaporative fraction from readily obtainable variables in mangrove forests of the Everglades, U.S.A.
Ali Levent Yagci, Joseph A. Santanello, John Jones, Jordan G. Barr
2017, International Journal of Remote Sensing (38) 3981-4007
A remote-sensing-based model to estimate evaporative fraction (EF) – the ratio of latent heat (LE; energy equivalent of evapotranspiration –ET–) to total available energy – from easily obtainable remotely-sensed and meteorological parameters is presented. This research specifically addresses the shortcomings of existing ET retrieval methods such as calibration requirements of...
Land change monitoring, assessment, and projection (LCMAP) revolutionizes land cover and land change research
Steven Young
2017, General Information Product 172
When nature and humanity change Earth’s landscapes - through flood or fire, public policy, natural resources management, or economic development - the results are often dramatic and lasting.Wildfires can reshape ecosystems. Hurricanes with names like Sandy or Katrina will howl for days while altering the landscape for years. One growing...
Climate legacy and lag effects on dryland plant communities in the southwestern U.S.
Erin Bunting, Seth M. Munson, Miguel L. Villarreal
2017, Ecological Indicators (74) 216-229
Climate change effects on vegetation will likely be strong in the southwestern U.S., which is projected to experience large increases in temperature and changes in precipitation. Plant communities in the southwestern U.S. may be particularly vulnerable to climate change as the productivity of many plant species is strongly water-limited. This...
Cloud detection algorithm comparison and validation for operational Landsat data products
Steven Curtis Foga, Pat Scaramuzza, Song Guo, Zhe Zhu, Ronald Dilley, Tim Beckmann, Gail L. Schmidt, John L. Dwyer, MJ Hughes, Brady Laue
2017, Remote Sensing of Environment (194) 379-390
Clouds are a pervasive and unavoidable issue in satellite-borne optical imagery. Accurate, well-documented, and automated cloud detection algorithms are necessary to effectively leverage large collections of remotely sensed data. The Landsat project is uniquely suited for comparative validation of cloud assessment algorithms because the modular architecture of the Landsat ground...
Landsat Science Team: 2017 Winter meeting summary
Thomas Loveland, Michael A. Wulder, James R. Irons
2017, The Earth Observer (29) 21-25
The winter meeting of the NASA-U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat Science Team (LST) was held January 10-12, 2017, at Boston University. LST co-chairs Tom Loveland [USGS’s Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS)—Senior Scientist], Jim Irons [NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)—Deputy Director, Earth Sciences Division], and Curtis Woodcock [Boston...
U.S. Geological Survey distribution of European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 data
Renee L. Pieschke
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3026
A partnership established between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) allows for USGS storage and redistribution of images acquired by the MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) on the European Union's Sentinel-2 satellite mission. The MSI data are acquired from a pair of satellites, Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B, which...
Landsat and agriculture—Case studies on the uses and benefits of Landsat imagery in agricultural monitoring and production
Colin R. Leslie, Larisa O. Serbina, Holly M. Miller
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1034
Executive SummaryThe use of Landsat satellite imagery for global agricultural monitoring began almost immediately after the launch of Landsat 1 in 1972, making agricultural monitoring one of the longest-standing operational applications for the Landsat program. More recently, Landsat imagery has been used in domestic agricultural applications as an input for...
Harmonization of forest disturbance datasets of the conterminous USA from 1986 to 2011
Christopher E. Soulard, William Acevedo, Warren B. Cohen, Zhiqiang Yang, Stephen V. Stehman, Janis L. Taylor
2017, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (189)
Several spatial forest disturbance datasets exist for the conterminous USA. The major problem with forest disturbance mapping is that variability between map products leads to uncertainty regarding the actual rate of disturbance. In this article, harmonized maps were produced from multiple data sources (i.e., Global Forest Change, LANDFIRE Vegetation Disturbance,...
Multi-temporal LiDAR and Landsat quantification of fire-induced changes to forest structure
T. Ryan McCarley, Crystal A. Kolden, Nicole M. Vaillant, Andrew T. Hudak, Alistair M.S. Smith, Brian M. Wing, Bryce Kellogg, Jason R. Kreitler
2017, Remote Sensing of Environment (191) 419-432
Measuring post-fire effects at landscape scales is critical to an ecological understanding of wildfire effects. Predominantly this is accomplished with either multi-spectral remote sensing data or through ground-based field sampling plots. While these methods are important, field data is usually limited to opportunistic post-fire observations, and spectral data often lacks...
Landsat eyes help guard the world's forests
Jon Campbell
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3018
SummaryThe Landsat program is a joint effort between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), but the partner agencies have distinct roles. NASA develops remote-sensing instruments and spacecraft, launches satellites, and validates their performance in orbit. The USGS owns and operates Landsat satellites in...
Autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) presence and proliferation on former surface coal mines in Eastern USA
Adam J. Oliphant, R.H. Wynne, Carl E. Zipper, W. Mark Ford, P. F. Donovan, Jing Li
2017, Biological Invasions (19) 179-195
Invasive plants threaten native plant communities. Surface coal mines in the Appalachian Mountains are among the most disturbed landscapes in North America, but information about land cover characteristics of Appalachian mined lands is lacking. The invasive shrub autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) occurs on these sites and interferes with...
Evaluating mountain meadow groundwater response to Pinyon-Juniper and temperature in a great basin watershed
Rosemary W.H. Carroll, Justin L. Huntington, Keirith A. Snyder, Richard G. Niswonger, Charles Morton, Tamzen K. Stringham
2017, Ecohydrology (10) 1-18
This research highlights development and application of an integrated hydrologic model (GSFLOW) to a semiarid, snow-dominated watershed in the Great Basin to evaluate Pinyon-Juniper (PJ) and temperature controls on mountain meadow shallow groundwater. The work used Google Earth Engine Landsat satellite and gridded climate archives for model evaluation. Model simulations...
Modeling waterfowl habitat selection in the Central Valley of California to better understand the spatial relationship between commercial poultry and waterfowl
Elliott Matchett, Michael L. Casazza, Joseph P. Fleskes, T. Kelman, M. Cadena, M. Pitesky
2017, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the Sixty-Sixth Western Poultry Disease Conference
Wildlife researchers frequently study resource and habitat selection of wildlife to understand their potential habitat requirements and to conserve their populations. Understanding wildlife spatial-temporal distributions related to habitat have other applications such as to model interfaces between wildlife and domestic food animals in order to mitigate disease transmission to food...
Conservation Reserve Program mitigates grassland loss in the lesser prairie-chicken range of Kansas
David A. Haukos, David Spencer, Christian A. Hagen, Melinda D. Daniels, Doug Goodin
2017, Global Ecology and Conservation (9) 21-38
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the overall occupied range of the lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) has declined by 84% commensurate with population trends. Much of this decline has been attributed to the loss and fragmentation of native grasslands throughout the lesser prairie-chicken...
Patterns and drivers for wetland connections in the Prairie Pothole Region, United States
Melanie K. Vanderhoof, Jay R. Christensen, Laurie C. Alexander
2017, Wetlands Ecology and Management (25) 275-297
Ecosystem function in rivers, lakes and coastal waters depends on the functioning of upstream aquatic ecosystems, necessitating an improved understanding of watershed-scale interactions including variable surface-water flows between wetlands and streams. As surface water in the Prairie Pothole Region expands in wet years, surface-water connections occur between many depressional wetlands...
An automated approach for mapping persistent ice and snow cover over high latitude regions
David J. Selkowitz, Richard R. Forster
2016, Remote Sensing (8)
We developed an automated approach for mapping persistent ice and snow cover (glaciers and perennial snowfields) from Landsat TM and ETM+ data across a variety of topography, glacier types, and climatic conditions at high latitudes (above ~65°N). Our approach exploits all available Landsat scenes acquired during the late summer (1...
Mapping site index and volume increment from forest inventory, Landsat, and ecological variables in Tahoe National Forest, California, USA
Shengli Huang, Carlos Ramirez, Scott Conway, Kama Kennedy, Tanya Kohler, Jinxun Liu
2016, Canadian Journal of Forest Research (47) 113-124
High-resolution site index (SI) and mean annual increment (MAI) maps are desired for local forest management. We integrated field inventory, Landsat, and ecological variables to produce 30 m SI and MAI maps for the Tahoe National Forest (TNF) where different tree species coexist. We converted species-specific SI using adjustment factors....
Optimizing selection of training and auxiliary data for operational land cover classification for the LCMAP initiative
Zhe Zhu, Alisa L. Gallant, Curtis Woodcock, Bruce Pengra, Pontus Olofsson, Thomas R. Loveland, Suming Jin, Devendra Dahal, Limin Yang, Roger F. Auch
2016, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (122) 206-221
The U.S. Geological Survey’s Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) initiative is a new end-to-end capability to continuously track and characterize changes in land cover, use, and condition to better support research and applications relevant to resource management and environmental change. Among the LCMAP product suite are annual land cover maps that...
Perspectives on monitoring gradual change across the continuity of Landsat sensors using time-series data
James Vogelmann, Alisa L. Gallant, Hua Shi, Zhe Zhu
2016, Remote Sensing of Environment (185) 258-270
There are many types of changes occurring over the Earth's landscapes that can be detected and monitored using Landsat data. Here we focus on monitoring “within-state,” gradual changes in vegetation in contrast with traditional monitoring of “abrupt” land-cover conversions. Gradual changes result from a variety of processes, such as vegetation...
Forecasting tidal marsh elevation and habitat change through fusion of Earth observations and a process model
Kristin B. Byrd, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Thomas Leeuw, Bryan D. Downing, James T. Morris, Matthew C. Ferner
2016, Ecosphere (7)
Reducing uncertainty in data inputs at relevant spatial scales can improve tidal marsh forecasting models, and their usefulness in coastal climate change adaptation decisions. The Marsh Equilibrium Model (MEM), a one-dimensional mechanistic elevation model, incorporates feedbacks of organic and inorganic inputs to project elevations under sea-level rise scenarios. We tested...
An optimal sample data usage strategy to minimize overfitting and underfitting effects in regression tree models based on remotely-sensed data
Yingxin Gu, Bruce K. Wylie, Stephen P. Boyte, Joshua J. Picotte, Danny Howard, Kelcy Smith, Kurtis Nelson
2016, Remote Sensing (8) 1-13
Regression tree models have been widely used for remote sensing-based ecosystem mapping. Improper use of the sample data (model training and testing data) may cause overfitting and underfitting effects in the model. The goal of this study is to develop an optimal sampling data usage strategy for any dataset and...
Integrating remote sensing with species distribution models; Mapping tamarisk invasions using the Software for Assisted Habitat Modeling (SAHM)
Amanda M. West, Paul H. Evangelista, Catherine S. Jarnevich, Nicholas E. Young, Thomas J. Stohlgren, Colin Talbert, Marian Talbert, Jeffrey Morisette, Ryan Anderson
2016, Journal of Visualized Experiments (116)
Early detection of invasive plant species is vital for the management of natural resources and protection of ecosystem processes. The use of satellite remote sensing for mapping the distribution of invasive plants is becoming more common, however conventional imaging software and classification methods have been shown to be unreliable. In...
Exploiting differential vegetation phenology for satellite-based mapping of semiarid grass vegetation in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico
Dennis G. Dye, Barry R. Middleton, John M. Vogel, Zhuoting Wu, Miguel G. Velasco
2016, Remote Sensing (8) 1-33
We developed and evaluated a methodology for subpixel discrimination and large-area mapping of the perennial warm-season (C4) grass component of vegetation cover in mixed-composition landscapes of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. We describe the methodology within a general, conceptual framework that we identify as the differential vegetation phenology...
Assessing the role of climate and resource management on groundwater dependent ecosystem changes in arid environments with the Landsat archive
Justin Huntington, Kenneth C. McGwire, Charles Morton, Keirith A. Snyder, Sarah Peterson, Tyler Erickson, Richard G. Niswonger, Rosemary W.H. Carroll, Guy Smith, Richard Allen
2016, Remote Sensing of Environment (185) 186-197
Groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs) rely on near-surface groundwater. These systems are receiving more attention with rising air temperature, prolonged drought, and where groundwater pumping captures natural groundwater discharge for anthropogenic use. Phreatophyte shrublands, meadows, and riparian areas are GDEs that provide critical habitat for many sensitive species, especially in arid...