Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center.
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Eyes on Earth Episode 73 – Global Water Use
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Summary: Some plants are simply better at making use of their water supply than others. More efficient plants can capture more carbon with less water, which has implications for carbon sequestration and ultimately for climate change modeling. In other words, the more we understand about water use efficiency, the more reliable our climate change models can be. And the only way to measure efficiency at the global scale is from space. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear from a scientist who studied global water use using a sensor called ECOSTRESS, whose data are housed at the USGS EROS Center, in NASA’s Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC).
Guests: Savannah Cooley, Applied Science Systems Engineer, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Host: John Hult
Producer: John Hult
Release date: May 2, 2022
More on ECOSTRESS and Global Water Use:
- Convergence in water use efficiency within plant functional types across contrasting climates
- Eyes on Earth Episode 65 – Rapid Fire Mapping with Remote Sensing
- Eyes on Earth Episode 63 - ECOSTRESS and Post-Fire Recovery
- Eyes on Earth Episode 70 - ECOSTRESS and Aquatic Ecosystems
Eyes on Earth Episode 72 – Northward Shift of the Boreal Forest
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Summary: The boreal forest, or taiga, stretches across nearly 5.7 million square miles in the northern latitudes. That’s nearly a quarter of all forested lands in the world. This sprawling biome also happens to be one of the most rapidly shifting in the face of climate change. Many studies have suggested that the taiga tree line is moving northward as temperatures warm worldwide, edging itself into the colder tundra. On this episode of Eyes On Earth, we hear from Professor Logan Berner, part of team at Northern Arizona University’s Global Earth Observation and Dynamics of Ecosystems (GEODE) Lab that used USGS Landsat satellite data to track and quantify the northward shift of the boreal tree line.
Guests: Logan Berner, assistant research professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS), Northern Arizona University
Host: John Hult
Producer: John Hult
Release date: April 18, 2022
More on Landsat and the Boreal Forest
- New study shows that Earth’s coldest forests are shifting northward with climate change
- Northern Arizona University’s Global Earth Observation and Dynamics of Ecosystems (GEODE) Lab
- NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment — ABoVE
Eyes on Earth Episode 71 – Blue Oak Forests of California
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Summary: In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we zero in on the use of USGS Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) products to examine the effects of drought on California’s Blue Oaks. LCMAP datasets are built from Landsat data and reveal the land cover and change of every pixel in the conterminous United States, dating back to 1985. In this case, LCMAP helped identify areas of declines and losses of the Blue Oak trees that are native to California and found in the foothills surrounding the central valley and along the coast.
Guests: Francis Dwomoh, contractor and landscape ecologist, USGS EROS Center
Host: Jane Lawson
Producer: John Hult
Release date: April 4, 2022
More on LCMAP and Blue Oak Forests:
- Hotter Drought Escalates Tree Cover Declines in Blue Oak Woodlands of California
- Eyes on Earth Episode 29 – Tracking Landscape Change with LCMAP
- USGS LCMAP initiative project website
Eyes on Earth Episode 70 – Aquatic Ecosystems and ECOSTRESS
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Summary: The Earth observation data archived here have plenty of value to the study of aquatic ecosystems. Landsat satellites can capture harmful algal blooms, for example. Spaceborne sensors can also record land surface temperatures, and that includes water surfaces. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear about how a sensor called ECOSTRESS can be used to measure water temperatures at different times of day, and how those measurements could be useful in the monitoring and management of the endangered Delta smelt. ECOSTRESS data are available through the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC), located in the USGS EROS Center.
Guests: Rebecca Gustine, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Cassandra Nickles, NASA JPL, Shruti Khanna, California Department of Water Resources
Host: John Hult
Producer: John Hult
Release date: March 21, 2022
More on aquatic ecosystems and ECOSTRESS :
- Using ECOSTRESS to Observe and Model Diurnal Variability in Water Temperature Conditions in the San Francisco Estuary
- Eyes on Earth Episode 67 – ECOSTRESS and Water Use
- Eyes on Earth Episode 65 – Rapid Fire Mapping with Remote Sensing
Eyes on Earth Episode 63 - ECOSTRESS and Post-Fire Recovery
Eyes on Earth Episode 69 – Thirty Years of Land Change in the U.S.
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Summary: Land change is a constant. Even land areas that see little major change can see disruptions from storms, heat waves, wildfires, or invasive species. But major changes aren't uncommon, either. Each year in the U.S., farm fields become tracts of suburban homes, wetlands become more permanent bodies of water, and shrublands burn to be replaced with grasslands. A team of researchers with the USGS Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection initiative (LCMAP) recently released a study documenting land cover class change from 1985-2016. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk to the study’s lead author about what they learned about land change, and about how land change ties in to policy, economic trends, weather patterns and more.
Guest: Roger Auch, Research Physical Geographer, USGS EROS Center
Host: John Hult
Producer: John Hult
Release date: March 7, 2022
More on LCMAP and land change:
- Conterminous United States Land-Cover Change (1985–2016): New Insights from Annual Time Series
- USGS Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) website
- USGS LCMAP Viewer
Eyes on Earth Episode 68 – Tracking Mangroves by Satellite
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Summary: The sturdy root systems of mangrove forests act as buffer zones along the coastlines of some of the planet’s most vulnerable communities, protecting lives, ecosystems and property from the rigors of hurricanes and tsunamis. The dual stressors of climate change and man-made changes to the environment such as offshore aquaculture have damaged these critical buffer zones in recent years. Remote sensing scientists are using satellite data to understand the impact those changes will have on the communities they protect as temperatures continue to warm worldwide and extreme weather events become more frequent. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk to one of those scientists.
Guest: Dr. Lola Fatoyinbo Agueh, Research Physical Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Host: John Hult
Producer: John Hult
Release date: February 21, 2022
More on remote sensing, mangroves and gold mining:
- Lola Fatoyinbo Staff bio – NASA GSFC
- Storm surge and ponding explain mangrove dieback in southwest Florida following Hurricane Irma
- The large footprint of small-scale artisanal gold mining in Ghana
Eyes on Earth Episode 67 – ECOSTRESS and Water Use
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Summary: If you want to know how much rain fell yesterday, you can catch it and measure it. Water vapor? That's not so easy. Which is a problem if you want to know how quickly that rate is returning to the atmosphere. Water vapor is the single largest part of the water budget, but without space-based observations, it would be all but impossible to measure at wide scale. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we learn how a sensor called ECOSTRESS helps improve the space-based measurement of evapotranspiration, or ET, which is the combined rate of evaporation from the Earth's surface and transpiration from plants.
Guest: Dr. Kerry Cawse-Nicholson, deputy science lead for ECOSTRESS at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Host: John Hult
Producer: John Hult
Release date: February 7, 2022
More on ECOSTRESS and ET:
- Kerry Cawse-Nicholson staff bio – NASA JPL
- Interoperability of ECOSTRESS and Landsat for mapping evapotranspiration time series at sub-field scales
- Eyes on Earth Episode 65 – Rapid Fire Mapping with Remote Sensing
Eyes on Earth Episode 63 - ECOSTRESS and Post-Fire Recovery
Eyes on Earth Episode 66 – Exotic Annual Grasses
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Summary: The rangelands of the western United States are changing more quickly than many other parts of the lower 48. Miles upon miles of the area or semi-arid landscapes in states like Idaho, Montana and Nevada are now carpeted by fire fueling invasive grasses. Cheatgrass is the most prevalent, which is troublesome for several reasons. First off, it greens up and browns down really quickly, leaving a layer of tinder-like vegetation. In many areas, it fills in the formerly barren spaces between thicker bunchgrasses and sagebrush, which in turn helps fires move rapidly from fuel source to fuel source. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear from the USGS EROS teams who use satellite data to map exotic annual grasses and a researcher who uses those maps to create monthly grass abundance estimates for firefighters and land managers.
Guests: Stephen Boyte, USGS EROS research physical scientist, Devendra Dahal, USGS EROS contractor, Matt Reeves, USDA Forest Service ecologist
Host: John Hult
Producer: John Hult
Release date: January 24, 2022
More on Exotic Annual Grasses:
- Fractional Estimates of Multiple Exotic Annual Grass (EAG) Species and Sandberg bluegrass in the Sagebrush Biome, USA, 2016 – 2020
- New USGS EROS Maps to Offer Aid in Understanding, Management of Invasive Grasses
- USGS EROS Work Informs USGS Sagebrush Ecosystem Efforts
Eyes on Earth Episode 65 – Rapid Fire Mapping with Remote Sensing
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Summary: Satellites like Landsat are valuable for mapping fire perimeters and for monitoring trends in burn severity or in post-fire recovery. Satellites can cover wide areas with a single pass, whereas helicopter, drone, or airplane fire line mapping can take hours. But civilian satellites with moderate resolution typically don't get imagery for the entire planet every day, and every day counts when large fires rage. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk through a tool called RADR-Fire built to pull data from a wide variety of sources to map disaster impacts on a day-by-day basis. ECOSTRESS, a sensor on the International Space Station whose data are archived at the NASA’s EROS-based Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC), has been an especially useful source of information.
Guests: Andre Coleman, senior research scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Lee Miller, remote sensing specialist, PNNL, Rick Stratton, USDA Forest Service
Host: John Hult
Producer: John Hult
Release date: January 10, 2022
More on ECOSTRESS and RADR-Fire:
- Rapid Analytics for Disaster Response (RADR-Fire)
- ECOSTRESS
- Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC)
Eyes on Earth Episode 64 - Colorado Bark Beetles
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Summary: Outbreaks of native bark beetles can lead to conspicuous changes in a forest landscape. They’ve been present for thousands of years with occasional outbreaks, but there’s a lot we don’t yet understand about them. Exactly when and where have outbreaks occurred? How severe were they? What happened to the forest afterward? How will a warming climate influence outbreaks? On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear from researchers Dr. Sarah Hart and Dr. Kyle Rodman, who use Landsat to help find answers to those questions. A recent study led by Dr. Rodman used Landsat to identify the locations and severity of bark beetle outbreaks in the southern Rocky Mountains. The researchers were surprised to find smaller areas of severe mortality than they expected. Landsat can even be used to help predict patterns of future outbreaks. Dr. Zhiliang Zhu, a USGS researcher, adds his perspective of the effects of forest disturbance as well.
Guests: Dr. Sarah Hart, forest ecologist, Colorado State University; Dr. Kyle Rodman, research scientist, Northern Arizona University’s Ecological Restoration Institute; Dr. Zhiliang Zhu, USGS biologic carbon sequestration researcher
Host: Jane Lawson
Producer: John Hult
Release date: December 27, 2021
More on forest disturbances:
Landsat: The Watchman That Never Sleeps
Image of the Week: Beetle Damage in the Black Hills
New York tries creative ways, including satellites, to fight hemlock-killing insect
Eyes on Earth Episode 63 – ECOSTRESS and Post-Fire Recovery
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Summary: Fires can be destructive or healthy for a landscape—often both. Fires have grown larger and more destructive in recent years, though, thanks to human activity, climate change, and a host of other factors. Satellite data helps us to map and monitor fire activity, but the study of post-fire plant life using remote sensing data goes further than fire mapping. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear from Dr. Helen Poulos, who used data from the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station, (ECOSTRESS), to study Arizona Pine Oak forest 5-7 years after severe fire. Dr. Poulos and her collaborators at Northern Arizona University and the University of Maine at Farmington learned that post-fire shrublands had surprisingly high rates of water use. ECOSTRESS data are available through NASA’s Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center or LP DAAC, which is located at EROS.
Guest: Dr. Helen Poulos, forest ecologist, Wesleyan University
Host: John Hult
Producer: John Hult
Release date: December 13, 2021
More on ECOSTRESS:
Related Content
Find all our previous episodes below.
Eyes on Earth Episode 73 – Global Water Use
Eyes on Earth Episode 72 – Northward Shift of the Boreal Forest
Eyes on Earth Episode 71 – Blue Oak Forests of California
Eyes on Earth Episode 70 - ECOSTRESS and Aquatic Ecosystems
Eyes on Earth Episode 69 - Thirty Years of Land Change in the U.S.
Eyes on Earth Episode 68 - Tracking Mangroves by Satellite
Eyes on Earth Episode 67 - ECOSTRESS and Water Use
Eyes on Earth Episode 66 - Exotic Annual Grasses
Eyes on Earth Episode 65 - Rapid Fire Mapping with Remote Sensing
Eyes on Earth Episode 64 – Colorado Bark Beetles
Eyes on Earth Episode 63 - ECOSTRESS and Post-Fire Recovery
Eyes on Earth Episode 60 – Landsat 9 Launch Part 1
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we hear interviews with some of the various agency officials gathered before the Landsat 9 launch.
Eyes on Earth audio archive
Eyes on Earth Episode 71 – Blue Oak Forests of California
In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we zero in on the use of USGS Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) products to examine the effects of drought on California’s Blue Oaks. LCMAP datasets are built from Landsat data and reveal the land cover and change of every pixel in the conterminous United States, dating back to 1985.
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Find all our previous episodes below.
Filter Total Items: 71Eyes on Earth Episode 73 – Global Water Use
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we hear about a study that measured water use efficiency worldwide and found surprising results.Eyes on Earth Episode 72 – Northward Shift of the Boreal Forest
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we learn about changes to Earth’s largest land biome.Eyes on Earth Episode 71 – Blue Oak Forests of California
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we learn how Landsat-based data products have been used to study forest change in California.Eyes on Earth Episode 70 - ECOSTRESS and Aquatic Ecosystems
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we learn how space-based measurements of water temperature can help manage invasive species.Eyes on Earth Episode 69 - Thirty Years of Land Change in the U.S.
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we learn how the landscapes of the U.S. have changed since 1985.Eyes on Earth Episode 68 - Tracking Mangroves by Satellite
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we learn what satellites can tell us about mangrove forests.Eyes on Earth Episode 67 - ECOSTRESS and Water Use
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we learn how the ECOSTRESS sensor can track water use efficiency.Eyes on Earth Episode 66 - Exotic Annual Grasses
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we hear about the value of mapping fire-fueling invasive grasses in the Western U.S.Eyes on Earth Episode 65 - Rapid Fire Mapping with Remote Sensing
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we learn about a tool that combines satellite datasets to quickly map fires.Eyes on Earth Episode 64 – Colorado Bark Beetles
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we learn how Landsat helps to track bark beetle outbreaks.Eyes on Earth Episode 63 - ECOSTRESS and Post-Fire Recovery
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we learn how a new spaceborne sensor aids the study of wildfire recovery.Eyes on Earth Episode 60 – Landsat 9 Launch Part 1
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we hear interviews with some of the various agency officials gathered before the Landsat 9 launch.
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Eyes on Earth audio archive
Eyes on Earth Episode 71 – Blue Oak Forests of California
In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we zero in on the use of USGS Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) products to examine the effects of drought on California’s Blue Oaks. LCMAP datasets are built from Landsat data and reveal the land cover and change of every pixel in the conterminous United States, dating back to 1985.