Delineation and characterization of remotely sensed vegetation conditions in spring-dependent ecosystems, Harney County, Oregon

This data release includes data processing scripts, data products, and associated metadata for a novel remote-sensing based approach to assess resilience of spring-dependent ecosystems to inter-annual changes in water availability. This approach uses remotely-sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to (1) delineate surface moisture zones (SMZs) in the vicinity of mapped springs in a semi-arid sage-steppe landscape, (2) derive quantitative indicators of the relative resilience of these SMZs to inter-annual changes in water availability, and (3) synthesize these indicators into an overall resilience score for each cluster of springs. Specifically, for 39 spring clusters mapped in the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) in Harney County, Oregon, USA, these scripts process Landsat-derived NDVI and precipitation data from 1985-2011 to derive 7 potential indicators of SMZ resilience to water-cycle changes. This data release also includes a geodatabase containing spatial data products produced by the scripts. For detailed descriptions of data release components, please consult the appropriate metadata documents that accompany the processing scripts and data products.