Publications

In the early 1980s, the situation on the northern part of the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso was characterized by expanding cultivation on lands marginal to agriculture, declining rainfall, low and declining cereal yields, disappearing and impoverishing vegetation, falling ground-water levels and strong outmigration. This crisis situation provoked two reactions. Farmers, as well as...

A plant–soil nitrogen (N) cycling model was developed and incorporated into the Integrated BIosphere Simulator (IBIS) of Foley et al. [Foley, J.A., Prentice, I.C., Ramankutty, N., Levis, S., Pollard, D., Sitch, S., Haxeltine, A., 1996. An integrated biosphere model of land surface process, terrestrial carbon balance and vegetation dynamics. Global Biogeochem. Cycles 10, 603–628]. In the...

We automated a method for mapping Hammond's landforms over large landscapes using digital elevation data. We compared our results against Hammond's published landform maps, derived using manual interpretation procedures. We found general agreement in landform patterns mapped by the manual and the automated approaches, and very close agreement in characterization of local topographic...

The ability to detect and quantify changes in the Earth's environment depends on satellites sensors that can provide calibrated, consistent measurements of Earth's surface features through time. A critical step in this process is to put image data from subsequent generations of sensors onto a common radiometric scale. To evaluate Landsat-5 (L5) Thematic Mapper's (TM) utility in this role...

Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) have been declining in many states and provinces of North America, and North and South Dakota hold no exception to these declines. We studied effects of cultivated land on Greater Sage-Grouse lek abandonment in North and South Dakota. Landscape-level data were assessed using satellite imagery within a geographic information system...

Watershed-based sampling design and assessment tools help serve the multiple goals for water quality monitoring required under the Clean Water Act, including assessment of regional conditions to meet Section 305(b), identification of impaired water bodies or watersheds to meet Section 303(d), and development of empirical relationships between causes or sources of impairment and...

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is a key instrument aboard NASA?s Terra Earth Observing System (EOS) AM and Aqua EOS PM spacecrafts.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Remote Sensing Data Archive, located at the USGS Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, maintains the Landsat orthorectified data archive. Within the archive are Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data that have been pansharpened and orthorectified by the Earth Satellite Corporation...

The Elevation Derivatives for National Applications (EDNA) project is a multi-agency effort to develop standard topographically derived layers for use in hydrologic and environmental modeling. The EDNA takes advantage of the seamless and filtered characteristics for the National Elevation Dataset (NED) to create a hydrologically conditioned Digital Elevation Model (DEM) useful for...

Since November 2000, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) mission has demonstrated the capabilities of a dozen spacecraft sensor and communication innovations. Onboard the EO-1 spacecraft are two land remote sensing instruments. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) acquires data in spectral bands and at resolutions similar to Landsat. The Hyperion...

The value of remotely sensed imagery during times of crisis is well established, and the increasing spatial and spectral resolution in newer systems provides ever greater utility and ability to discriminate features of interest (International Charter, Space and Major Disasters, 2005). The existing suite of sensors provides an abundance of data, and enables warning alerts to be broadcast...

In March 1996, an intense earthquake swarm beneath Akutan Island, Alaska, was accompanied by extensive ground cracking but no eruption of Akutan volcano. Radar interferograms produced from L-band JERS-1 and C-band ERS-1/2 images show uplift associated with the swarm by as much as 60 cm on the western part of the island. The JERS-1 interferogram has greater coherence, especially in areas...