Western Geographic Science Center
Publications
Remote sensing for wetland mapping and historical change detection at the Nisqually River Delta
Coastal wetlands are important ecosystems for carbon storage and coastal resilience to climate change and sea-level rise. As such, changes in wetland habitat types can also impact ecosystem functions. Our goal was to quantify historical vegetation change within the Nisqually River watershed relevant to carbon storage, wildlife habitat, and wetland...
Ballanti, Laurel; Byrd, Kristin B.; Woo, Isa; Ellings, Christopher HERA: A dynamic web application for visualizing community exposure to flood hazards based on storm and sea level rise scenarios
The Hazard Exposure Reporting and Analytics (HERA) dynamic web application was created to provide a platform that makes research on community exposure to coastal-flooding hazards influenced by sea level rise accessible to planners, decision makers, and the public in a manner that is both easy to use and easily accessible. HERA allows users to (a)...
Jones, Jeanne M.; Henry, Kevin; Wood, Nathan J.; Ng, Peter; Jamieson, Matthew Interannual variation in methane emissions from tropical wetlands triggered by repeated El Niño Southern Oscillation
Methane (CH4) emissions from tropical wetlands contribute 60%–80% of global natural wetland CH4 emissions. Decreased wetland CH4 emissions can act as a negative feedback mechanism for future climate warming and vice versa. The impact of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on CH4 emissions from wetlands remains poorly quantified at both...
Zhu, Qiuan; Peng, Changhui; Ciais, Philippe; Jiang, Hong; Liu, Jinxun; Bousquet, Philippe; Li, Shiqin; Chang, Jie; Fang, Xiuqin; Zhou, Xiaolu; Chen, Huai; Liu, Shirong; Lin, Guanghui; Gong, Peng; Wang, Meng; Wang, Han; Xiang, Wenhua; Chen, Jing Forest harvest patterns on private lands in the Cascade Mountains, Washington, USA
Forests in Washington State generate substantial economic revenue from commercial timber harvesting on private lands. To investigate the rates, causes, and spatial and temporal patterns of forest harvest on private tracts throughout the Cascade Mountains, we relied on a new generation of annual land-use/land-cover (LULC) products created from the...
Soulard, Christopher E.; Walker, Jessica J.; Griffith, Glenn E. Sustainability of utility-scale solar energy – critical ecological concepts
Renewable energy development is an arena where ecological, political, and socioeconomic values collide. Advances in renewable energy will incur steep environmental costs to landscapes in which facilities are constructed and operated. Scientists – including those from academia, industry, and government agencies – have only recently begun to...
Moore-O'Leary, Kara A.; Hernandez, Rebecca R.; Johnston, Dave S.; Abella, Scott R.; Tanner, Karen E.; Swanson, Amanda C.; Kreitler, Jason R.; Lovich, Jeffrey E. Climate impacts on agricultural land use in the USA: the role of socio-economic scenarios
We examine the impacts of climate on net returns from crop and livestock production and the resulting impact on land-use change across the contiguous USA. We first estimate an econometric model to project effects of weather fluctuations on crop and livestock net returns and then use a semi-reduced form land-use share model to study agricultural...
Mu, Jianhong E.; Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Abatzoglou, John T.; Antle, John M. Evaluating the role of land cover and climate uncertainties in computing gross primary production in Hawaiian Island ecosystems
Gross primary production (GPP) is the Earth’s largest carbon flux into the terrestrial biosphere and plays a critical role in regulating atmospheric chemistry and global climate. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS)-MOD17 data product is a widely used remote sensing-based model that provides global estimates of spatiotemporal...
Kimball, Heather L.; Selmants, Paul; Moreno, Alvaro; Running Steve W; Giardina, Christian P. Projecting community changes in hazard exposure to support long-term risk reduction: A case study of tsunami hazards in the U.S. Pacific Northwest
Tsunamis have the potential to cause considerable damage to communities along the U.S. Pacific Northwest coastline. As coastal communities expand over time, the potential societal impact of tsunami inundation changes. To understand how community exposure to tsunami hazards may change in coming decades, we projected future development (i.e. urban,...
Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Wood, Nathan J.; Soulard, Christopher E.; Wilson, Tamara Spectral matching techniques (SMTs) and automated cropland classification algorithms (ACCAs) for mapping croplands of Australia using MODIS 250-m time-series (2000–2015) data
Mapping croplands, including fallow areas, are an important measure to determine the quantity of food that is produced, where they are produced, and when they are produced (e.g. seasonality). Furthermore, croplands are known as water guzzlers by consuming anywhere between 70% and 90% of all human water use globally. Given these facts and the...
Teluguntla, Pardhasaradhi G.; Thenkabail, Prasad S.; Xiong, Jun N.; Gumma, Murali Krishna; Congalton, Russell G.; Oliphant, Adam; Poehnelt, Justin; Yadav, Kamini; Rao, Mahesh N.; Massey, Richard
Evaluating land-use change scenarios for the Puget Sound Basin, Washington, within the ecosystem recovery target model-based framework
The Puget Sound Basin, Washington, has experienced rapid urban growth in recent decades, with varying impacts to local ecosystems and natural resources. To plan for future growth, land managers often use scenarios to assess how the pattern and volume of growth may affect natural resources. Using three different land-management scenarios for the...
Villarreal, Miguel L.; Aiello, Danielle; Labiosa, Bill Historical analysis of riparian vegetation change in response to shifting management objectives on the Middle Rio Grande
Riparian ecosystems are valuable to the ecological and human communities that depend on them. Over the past century, they have been subject to shifting management practices to maximize human use and ecosystem services, creating a complex relationship between water policy, management, and the natural ecosystem. This has necessitated research on the...
Petrakis, Roy; van Leeuwen, Willem J.D.; Villarreal, Miguel L.; Tashjian, Paul; Dello Russo, Regina; Scott, Christopher A.
Baseline and projected future carbon storage and carbon fluxes in ecosystems of Hawai‘i
This assessment was conducted to fulfill the requirements of section 712 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and to improve understanding of factors influencing carbon balance in ecosystems of Hawai‘i. Ecosystem carbon storage, carbon fluxes, and carbon balance were examined for major terrestrial ecosystems on the seven main...
Selmants, Paul C.; Giardina, Christian P.; Jacobi, James D.; Zhu, Zhiliang