Publications
Filter Total Items: 487
Birdwatching preferences reveal synergies and tradeoffs among recreation, carbon, and fisheries ecosystem services in Pacific Northwest estuaries, USA
Coastal ecosystems provide multiple ecosystem services that are valued in diverse ways. The Nisqually River Delta (the Delta), an estuary in Puget Sound, Washington, U.S.A., is co-managed by the Nisqually Indian Tribe and the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. In an ecosystem services assessment, we used different service-appropriate methods including citizen science, statistical
Authors
Kristin B. Byrd, Isa Woo, Laurie Anne Hall, Emily J. Pindilli, Monica Moritsch, Anthony Good, Susan E. W. De La Cruz, Melanie J. Davis, Glynnis Nakai
U.S. Geological Survey climate science plan—Future research directions
Executive Summary Climate is the primary driver of environmental change and is a key consideration in defining science priorities conducted across all mission areas in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Recognizing the importance of climate change to its future research agenda, the USGS’s Climate Science Steering Committee requested the development of a Climate Science Plan to identify future rese
Authors
Tamara Wilson, Ryan P. Boyles, Nicole DeCrappeo, Judith Z. Drexler, Kevin D. Kroeger, Rachel A. Loehman, John M. Pearce, Mark P. Waldrop, Peter D. Warwick, Anne M. Wein, Sara L. Zeigler, T. Douglas Beard,
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Energy Resources Program, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Volcano Hazards Program, Alaska Science Center, California Water Science Center, Geology, Energy & Minerals Science Center, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Volcano Science Center, Western Geographic Science Center, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center
Will there be water? Climate change, housing needs, and future water demand in California
Climate change in California is expected to alter future water availability, impacting water supplies needed to support future housing growth and agriculture demand. In groundwater-dependent regions like California's Central Coast, new land-use related water demand and decreasing recharge is already stressing depleted groundwater basins. We developed a spatially explicit state-and-transition simul
Authors
Tamara Wilson, Paul Selmants, Ryan M Boynton, James H. Thorne, N. Van Schmidt, Timothy Thomas
An ensemble mean method for remote sensing of actual evapotranspiration to estimate water budget response across a restoration landscape
Estimates of actual evapotranspiration (ETa) are valuable for effective monitoring and management of water resources. In areas that lack ground-based monitoring networks, remote sensing allows for accurate and consistent estimates of ETa across a broad scale—though each algorithm has limitations (i.e., ground-based validation, temporal consistency, spatial resolution). We developed an ensemble mea
Authors
Roy Petrakis, Laura M. Norman, Miguel L. Villarreal, Gabriel B. Senay, MacKenzie Friedrichs, Florance Cassassuce, Florent Gomis, Pamela L. Nagler
Automated Cropland Fallow Algorithm (ACFA) for the Northern Great Plains of USA
Cropland fallowing is choosing not to plant a crop during a season when a crop is normally planted. It is an important component of many crop rotations and can improve soil moisture and health. Knowing which fields are fallow is critical to assess crop productivity and crop water productivity, needed for food security assessments. The annual spatial extent of cropland fallows is poorly understood
Authors
Adam Oliphant, Prasad Thenkabail, Pardhasaradhi Teluguntla, Itiya Aneece, Daniel Foley, Richard L. McCormick
Toward a US framework for continuity of satellite observations of Earth's climate and for supporting societal resilience
There is growing urgency for improved public and commercial services to support a resilient, secure, and thriving United States (US) in the face of mounting decision-support needs for environmental stewardship and hazard response, as well as for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Sustained space-based Earth observations are critical infrastructure to support the delivery of science and deci
Authors
Duane E. Waliser, Waleed Abdalati, Nancy Baker, Stacey Boland, Michael Bonadonna, Carol Anne Clayson, Belay Demoz, Kelsey Foster, Christian Frankenburg, Maria Hakuba, Therese Jorgensen, Ryan J. Kramer, Daniel Limonadi, Anna M. Michalak, Asal Naseri, Pat Patterson, Peter Pilewskie, Steven Platnick, Charlie Powell, Jeff Privette, Chris Ruf, Tapio Schneider, Jorg Schulz, Paul Selmants, Rashmi Shah, Qianqian Song, Graeme Stephens, Timothy S. Stryker
Slope Unit Maker (SUMak): An efficient and parameter-free algorithm for delineating slope units to improve landslide modeling
Slope units are terrain partitions bounded by drainage and divide lines. In landslide modeling, including susceptibility modeling and event-specific modeling of landslide occurrence, slope units provide several advantages over gridded units, such as better capturing terrain geometry, improved incorporation of geospatial landslide-occurrence data in different formats (e.g., point and polygon), and
Authors
Jacob Bryson Woodard, Benjamin B. Mirus, Nathan J. Wood, Kate E. Allstadt, Ben Leshchinsky, Matthew Crawford
Ancient infrastructure offers sustainable agricultural solutions to dryland farming
For 1000 years, human populations in dryland regions of the North American Southwest (NAS) extensively constructed diverse forms of agricultural infrastructure, including canals, linear rock alignments, check dams, stock ponds, and other earthworks and rock structures. The long-term hydrological impacts of these and the demographic and socio-political drivers of construction and maintenance have y
Authors
Matthew C. Pailes, Laura M. Norman, Christopher H. Baisan, David Meko, Nicolas E. Gauthier, Jose Villanueva-Diaz, Jeff Dean, Jupiter Martinez, Nicholas V Kessler, Ron Towner
An open-source workflow for scaling burn severity metrics from drone to satellite to support post-fire watershed management
Wildfires are increasing in size and severity across much of the western United States, exposing vulnerable wildland-urban interfaces to post-fire hazards. The Mediterranean chaparral region of Northern California contains many high sloping watersheds prone to hazardous post-fire flood events and identifying watersheds at high risk of soil loss and debris flows is a priority for post-fire response
Authors
Joshua W. Von Nonn, Miguel L. Villarreal, Leonhard Blesius, Jerry D. Davis, Skye C. Corbett
Trade-offs in adapting to changes in climate, land use, and water availability in California
Changes in land use and land cover, water systems, and climate are inextricably linked, and their combined stresses have had severe impacts in many regions worldwide. Integrated adaptation planning can support adaptive capacity by helping institutions manage land and water resources at regional to local scales. Linkages between these stressors mean that planners are often faced with potential trad
Authors
N. Van Schmidt, Tamara Wilson, Lorraine E. Flint, R. Langridge
An early warning signal for grassland degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau
Intense grazing may lead to grassland degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, but it is difficult to predict where this will occur and to quantify it. Based on a process-based ecosystem model, we define a productivity-based stocking rate threshold that induces extreme grassland degradation to assess whether and where the current grazing activity in the region is sustainable. We find that the c
Authors
Qiuan Zhu, Huai Chen, Changhui Peng, Jinxun Liu, Shilong Piao, Jin-Sheng He, Shiping Wang, Xinquan Zhao, Jiang Zhang, Xiuqin Fang, Jiaxin Jin, Qi-En Yang, Liliang Ren, Yanfen Wang
Social vulnerability and geographic access barriers to earthquake early warning education in museums and other free choice learning environments
Given the earthquake risk on the West Coast of the United States, individuals and communities require a basic understanding of ShakeAlert earthquake early warning technology, which may provide crucial seconds of warning. Free choice learning environments (FCLEs), such as museums, public libraries, and national parks, are uniquely positioned to expand the reach of earthquake early warning through e
Authors
Danielle F. Sumy, Oronde Oliver Drakes, Sara McBride, Mariah R. Jenkins