Publications

We used remotely sensed data from the Landsat-8 and WorldView-2 satellites to estimate vegetation burn severity of the Creek Fire on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, where wildfire occurrences affect the Tribe's crucial livestock and logging industries. Accurate pre- and post-fire canopy maps at high (0.5-meter) resolution were created from World- View-2 data to generate canopy loss...

Land use/land cover (LULC) and climate changes are important drivers of change in streamflow. Assessing the impact of LULC and climate changes on streamflow is typically done with a calibrated and validated watershed model. However, there is a debate on the degree of calibration required. The objective of this study was to quantify the variation in estimated relative and absolute changes...

Scientists designed the ARkStorm scenario to challenge the preparedness of California communities for widespread flooding with a historical precedence and increased likelihood under climate change. California is an important provider of vegetables, fruits, nuts, and other agricultural products to the nation. This study analyzes the agricultural damages and losses pertaining to annual...

The dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM) MC2 was run over the conterminous USA at 30 arc sec (~800 m) to simulate the impacts of nine climate futures generated by 3GCMs (CSIRO, MIROC and CGCM3) using 3 emission scenarios (A2, A1B and B1) in the context of the LandCarbon national carbon sequestration assessment. It first simulated potential vegetation dynamics from coast to coast...

Baseline information about dryland forest phenology is necessary to accurately anticipate future ecosystem shifts. The overarching goal of our study was to investigate the variability of vegetation phenology across a dryland forest landscape in response to climate alterations. We analyzed the influence of site characteristics and climatic conditions on the phenological patterns of an...

Increased land-use intensity (e.g. clearing of forests for cultivation, urbanization), often results in the loss of ecosystem carbon storage, while changes in productivity resulting from climate change may either help offset or exacerbate losses. However, there are large uncertainties in how land and climate systems will evolve and interact to shape future ecosystem carbon dynamics. To...

Aeolian sand covers extensive areas of the Navajo Nation in the southwestern United States. Much of this sand is currently stabilized by vegetation, although many drier parts of these Native lands also have active and partly active dunes. Current prolonged drought conditions that started in the mid-1990s are producing significant changes in dune mobility. Reactivation of regional aeolian...

Fog and low cloud cover (FLCC) changes the water, energy, and nutrient flux of coastal ecosystems. Easy-to-use FLCC data are needed to quantify the impacts of FLC on ecosystem dynamics during hot, dry Mediterranean climate summers. FLCC indices were generated from 26,000 hourly night and day FLCC maps derived from Geostationary Environmental Operational Satellite (GOES) data for June...

The precise estimation of the global agricultural cropland- extents, areas, geographic locations, crop types, cropping intensities, and their watering methods (irrigated or rainfed; type of irrigation) provides a critical scientific basis for the development of water and food security policies (Thenkabail et al., 2012, 2011, 2010). By year 2100, the global human population is expected to...

Remote sensing data are considered hyperspectral when the data are gathered from numerous wavebands, contiguously over an entire range of the spectrum (e.g., 400–2500 nm). Goetz (1992) defines hyperspectral remote sensing as “The acquisition of images in hundreds of registered, contiguous spectral bands such that for each picture element of an image it is possible to derive a complete...

We examined opportunities for avoided loss of wetland carbon stocks in the Great Plains of the United States in the context of future agricultural expansion through analysis of land-use land-cover (LULC) change scenarios, baseline carbon datasets and biogeochemical model outputs. A wetland map that classifies wetlands according to carbon pools was created to describe future patterns of...

We examine the effects of crop management adaptation and climate mitigation strategies on land use and land management, plus on related environmental and economic outcomes. We find that crop management adaptation (e.g. crop mix, new species) increases Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 1.7 % under a more severe climate projection while a carbon price reduces total forest and agriculture...