Western Geographic Science Center
Publications
High-Resolution mapping of biomass and distribution of marsh and forested wetlands in southeastern coastal Louisiana
This study estimates herbaceous and forested wetland coverage and aboveground biomass (AGB) within the Atchafalaya and Terrebonne coastal basins representing sediment rich and sediment poor coastal regions of southern Louisiana. Louisiana coastal wetlands account for approximately one third (37%) of the estuarine wetland area in the conterminous...
Nathan Thomas; Marc Simard; Edward Castaneda-Moya; Byrd, Kristin B.; Windham-Myers, Lisamarie; Azure Bevington; Robert Twilley Spatial patterns of meadow sensitivities to interannual climate variability in the Sierra Nevada
Conservation of montane meadows is a high priority for land and water managers given their critical role in buffering the effects of climate variability and their vulnerability to increasing temperatures and evaporative demands. Recent advances in cloud computing have provided new opportunities to examine ecological responses to climate...
Christine M. Albano; Meredith L. McClure; Shana E. Gross; Kitlasten, Wesley; Soulard, Christopher; Charles Morton; Justin Huntington Evaluating the mid-infrared bi-spectral index for improved assessment of low-severity fire effects in a conifer forest
Remote sensing products provide a vital understanding of wildfire effects across a landscape, but detection and delineation of low- and mixed-severity fire remains difficult. While data provided by the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity project (MTBS) are frequently used to assess severity in the United States, alternative indices can offer...
McCarley, R; Smith, A.M.S; Kolden, C.A.; Kreitler, Jason R. Mapping cropland extent of Southeast and Northeast Asia using multi-year time-series Landsat 30-m data using Random Forest classifier on Google Earth Engine
Cropland extent maps are useful components for assessing food security. Ideally, such products are a useful addition to countrywide agricultural statistics since they are not politically biased and can be used to calculate cropland area for any spatial unit from an individual farm to various administrative unites (e.g., state, county, district)...
Oliphant, Adam; Thenkabail, Prasad S.; Teluguntla, Pardhasaradhi; Xiong, Jun; Gumma, Murali Krishna; Russell G. Congalton; Kamini Yadav Effects of 21st century climate, land use, and disturbances on ecosystem carbon balance in California
Terrestrial ecosystems are an important sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), sequestering ~30% of annual anthropogenic emissions and slowing the rise of atmospheric CO2. However, the future direction and magnitude of the land sink is highly uncertain. We examined how historical and projected changes in climate, land use, and ecosystem...
Sleeter, Benjamin M.; David Marvin; D. Richard Cameron; Selmants, Paul; LeRoy Westerling; Kreitler, Jason R.; Colin Daniel; Liu, Jinxun; Wilson, Tamara Modelling development of riparian ranchlands using ecosystem services at the Aravaipa Watershed, SE Arizona
This paper describes how subdivision and development of rangelands within a remote and celebrated semiarid watershed near the US-Mexico border might affect multiple ecohydrological services provided, such as recharge of the aquifer, water and sediment yield, water quality, flow rates and downstream cultural and natural resources. Specifically, we...
Norman, Laura; Villarreal, Miguel; Niraula, Rewati; Haberstich, Mark; Wilson, Natalie
Assessing hazards and risks at the Department of the Interior—A workshop report
On February 27–28, 2018, the U.S. Geological Survey and Department of the Interior (DOI) Office of Emergency Management (OEM) hosted a workshop to gather input from DOI subject matter experts (SMEs), resource managers, facility managers, emergency managers, and law enforcement personnel. Workshop goals were to (1) determine how DOI Bureaus and...
Wood, Nathan; Pennaz, Alice; Ludwig, Kristin; Jones, Jeanne; Henry, Kevin; Sherba, Jason; Ng, Peter; Marineau, Jason; Juskie, John Distant neighbors: recent wildfire patterns of the Madrean Sky Islands of southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico
BackgroundInformation about contemporary fire regimes across the Sky Island mountain ranges of the Madrean Archipelago Ecoregion in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico can provide insight into how historical fire management and land use have influenced fire regimes, and can be used to guide fuels management, ecological restoration,...
Villarreal, Miguel L.; Haire, Sandra L.; Iniguez, Jose M.; Cortés Montaño, Citlali; Poitras, Travis B. When the earth doesn’t stop shaking: How experiences over time influenced information needs, communication, and interpretation of aftershock information during the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence, New Zealand
The Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) began with the Darfield earthquake on 4 September 2010. Continual large and small aftershocks since that time have meant communities have cycled through repeated periods of impact, response and recovery. Scientific communication about aftershocks during such a prolonged sequence has faced distinct...
Becker, Julia S.; Potter, Sally H.; McBride, Sara; Wein, Anne M.; Paton, Douglas Modeling riparian restoration impacts on the hydrologic cycle at the Babacomari Ranch, SE Arizona, USA
This paper describes coupling field experiments with surface and groundwater modeling to investigate rangelands of SE Arizona, USA using erosion-control structures to augment shallow and deep aquifer recharge. We collected field data to describe the physical and hydrological properties before and after gabions (caged riprap) were installed in an...
Norman, Laura M.; Callegary, James B.; Lacher, Laurel; Wilson, Natalie R.; Fandel, Chloé; Forbes, Brandon T.; Swetnam, Tyson A bibliometric profile of the Remote Sensing Open Access Journal published by MDPI between 2009 and 2018
Remote Sensing Open Access Journal (RS OAJ) is an international leading journal in the field of remote sensing science and technology. It was first published in the year 2009 and is currently celebrating tenth year of publications. In this research, a bibliometric analysis of RS OAJ was conducted based on 5588 articles published during the 10-year...
Zhang, YuYing; Thenkabail, Prasad S.; Wang, Peng Developing earthquake forecast templates for fast and effective communication
No abstract available.
McBride, Sara; Michael, Andrew J.; Wein, Anne M.; Hardebeck, Jeanne L.; Becker, Julia S.; Potter, Sally H.; Perry, Suzanne C.; Page, Morgan T.; Gerstenberger, Matthew; Field, Edward H.; Van Der Elst, Nicholas