Publication

An open-source tool for 3D visualization of lidar point cloud data along a vector line network and output of related lidar metrics. This tool will make available the valuable attribute data of point clouds to enable research such as riparian zone and migration corridor vegetation structure analysis or characterizing the related built environment.

To help users connect and comprehend USGS data, we propose to develop an interactive viewer for multi-channel geophysical data using existing Python PyViz tools.

We synthesize local high-resolution urban landcover imagery with microclimate data and regional meteorology to determine landcover drivers of extreme urban heat. Resulting outputs are mappable items spatially describing urban temperatures at fine scales, and a web application to analyze changes in urban heat under different climate scenarios.

This project leverages the USGS's photo archive and Structure from Motion algorithms to derive historical elevation and geomorphic data to catalyze a long-term landscape change analysis of a conservation area. We propose to create a best practices workflow and establish suitable accuracy metrics.

This proposal would fund the testing of quantitative methods for extracting total water level from imagery, with add-on applications including satellite shoreline detection, digital stream gauges, and flood detection. This project supports national scale USGS coastal hazards products.

This project develops an approach to common questions USGS scientists are faced with when working on multidisciplinary teams to address complex challenges — what models are available? When is it appropriate to couple/integrate models? And how can we apply technology to support an appropriate approach?

To make informed decisions, land managers require knowledge about the state of the ecosystems present. Vegetation structure is a key indicator of the state of forested systems; it influences habitat suitability, water quality and runoff, microclimate, and informs wildfire-related characteristics such as fuel loads, burn severity, and post-fire regeneration. Field data used to derive vegetation st

Wildfires are increasing across the western U.S., causing damage to ecosystems and communities. Addressing the fire problem requires understanding the trends and drivers of fire, yet most fire data is limited only to recent decades. Tree-ring fire scars provide fire records spanning 300-500 years, yet these data are largely inaccessible to potential users. Our project will deliver the newly compil

Geographic Information System (GIS) analyses are an essential part of natural resource management and research. Calculating and summarizing data within intersecting GIS layers is common practice for analysts and researchers. However, the various tools and steps required to complete this process are slow and tedious, requiring many tools iterating over hundreds, or even thousands of datasets. We pr

USGS research for the Risk and Vulnerability to Natural Hazards project at the Western Geographic Science Center has produced several geospatial datasets estimating the time required to evacuate on foot from two tsunami evacuation zones (standard and extreme) traveling at three travel speeds (impaired, slow, and fast walking speeds) for the Island of O’ahu, HI. Tabulation of O’ahu resident and emp...

Geotagged photographs have become a useful medium for recording, analyzing, and communicating Earth science phenomena. Despite their utility, many field photographs are not published or preserved in a spatial or accessible format—oftentimes because of confusion about photograph metadata, a lack of stability, or user customization in free photo sharing platforms. After receiving a request to releas...

The goal of this project was to develop a novel methodology to combine the USGS Gap Analysis Program (GAP) national land cover and species distribution data with disturbance data to describe and predict how disturbance affects biodiversity. Specifically, the project team presented a case study examining how energy development in the Williston Basin can affect grassland birds; however, the methods