Publications

Gross primary production (GPP) is a key indicator of ecosystem performance, and helps in many decision-making processes related to environment. We used the Eddy covariancelight use efficiency (EC-LUE) model for estimating GPP in the Great Plains, United States in order to evaluate the performance of this model. We developed a novel algorithm for computing the photosynthetically active...

An accurate approach is needed for monitoring, quantifying and understanding surface water variability due to climate change. Separating inter- and intra-annual variances from longer-term shifts in surface water extents due to contemporary climate warming requires repeat measurements spanning a several-decade period. Here, we show that trends developed from multi-date measurements of the...

Satellite-derived contemporary land-cover land-use (LCLU) and albedo data and modeled future LCLU are used to study the impact of LCLU change from 2000 to 2050 on surface albedo and radiative forcing for 19 ecoregions in the eastern United States. The modeled 2000–2050 LCLU changes indicate a future decrease in both agriculture and forested land and an increase in developed land that...

Estimating seasonal evapotranspiration (ET) has many applications in water resources planning and management, including hydrological and ecological modeling. Availability of satellite remote sensing images is limited due to repeat cycle of satellite or cloud cover. This study was conducted to determine the suitability of different methods namely cubic spline, fixed, and linear for...

The primary goal of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Natural Hazards Response is to ensure that the disaster response community has access to timely, accurate, and relevant geospatial products, imagery, and services during and after an emergency event. To accomplish this goal, products and services provided by the National Geospatial Program (NGP) and Land Remote Sensing (LRS) Program serve...

Remote sensing information has been widely used to monitor vegetation condition and variations in a variety of ecosystems, including shrublands. Careful application of remotely sensed imagery can provide additional spatially explicit, continuous, and extensive data on the composition and condition of shrubland ecosystems. Historically, the most widely available remote sensing information...

Gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Re) are the fundamental environmental characteristics that promote carbon exchanges with the atmosphere (Chapin and others, 2009), although other exchanges of carbon, such as direct oxidation (Lovett and others, 2006), can modify net ecosystem production (NEP). The accumulation of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems results in...

Preface U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Professional Paper 1794–A is the first in a four-volume series on the status and trends of the Nation’s land use and land cover, providing an assessment of the rates and causes of land-use and land-cover change in the Western United States between 1973 and 2000. Volumes B, C, and D provide similar analyses for the Great Plains, the Midwest–South...

Although global food production has been rising, the world sti ll faces a major food security challenge. Over one billion people are currently undernourished (Wheeler and Kay, 2010). By the 2050s, the human population is projected to grow to 9.1 billion. Over three-quarters of these people will be living in developing countries, in regions that already lack the capacity to feed their...

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) emissions are important, but poorly quantified, components of riverine carbon (C) budgets. This is largely because the data needed for gas flux calculations are sparse and are spatially and temporally variable. Additionally, the importance of C gas emissions relative to lateral C exports is not well known because gaseous and aqueous fluxes are not...

Spatially explicit representations of vegetation canopy height over large regions are necessary for a wide variety of inventory, monitoring, and modeling activities. Although airborne lidar data has been successfully used to develop vegetation canopy height maps in many regions, for vast, sparsely populated regions such as the boreal forest biome, airborne lidar is not widely available...

Biofuels are an important component in the development of alternative energy supplies, which is needed to achieve national energy independence and security in the United States. The most common biofuel product today in the United States is corn-based ethanol; however, its development is limited because of concerns about global food shortages, livestock and food price increases, and water...