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Western Geographic Science Center

The WGSC is responsible for research and applications to understand coupled human-environmental systems in the face of land change and delivering pertinent information to decision makers on the vulnerability and resilience of these systems.  WGSC scientists collaborate with partners to advance the goals of the USGS Core Science Systems and Ecosystems Mission Areas and their programs. 

News

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New NASA ROSES Award for 5-years (2023-2028) for the Global Food-and-Water Security-support Analysis Data (GFSAD) project of WGSC (PI: Prasad S. Thenkabail)

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Release of LGRIP30 Data Product

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Now Available: First CONUS-wide Coastal Wetland Collection

Publications

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
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N. Van Schmidt, Tamara S. 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

The long shadow of a major disaster: Modeled dynamic impacts of the hypothetical HayWired earthquake on California’s economy

We develop and apply a dynamic economic simulation model to analyze the multi-regional impacts of, and mechanisms of recovery from, a major disaster, the HayWired scenario — a hypothetical Magnitude 7.0 earthquake affecting California’s San Francisco Bay Area. The model integrates loss pathways: capital stock damage, labor supply shocks due to short-term population displacement and longer-run out-
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Ian Sue Wing, Adam Z Rose, Dan Wei, Anne Wein

Science

Remote Sensing of Invasive Annual Grasses -- Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Exotic annual grasses such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) have heavily invaded portions of the western United States, rapidly degrading habitats and increasing wildfire risk. Cheatgrass and other ESIs (desert alyssum [Alyssum desertorum], and annual wheatgrass [Eremopyrum triticeum]) are an emerging threat to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE); climatic changes including earlier snowmelt/run...
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Remote Sensing of Invasive Annual Grasses -- Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Exotic annual grasses such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) have heavily invaded portions of the western United States, rapidly degrading habitats and increasing wildfire risk. Cheatgrass and other ESIs (desert alyssum [Alyssum desertorum], and annual wheatgrass [Eremopyrum triticeum]) are an emerging threat to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE); climatic changes including earlier snowmelt/run...
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Global Food-and-Water Security-support Analysis Data (GFSAD)

The GFSAD is a NASA funded project (2023-2028) to provide highest-resolution global cropland data and their water use that contributes towards global food-and-water security in the twenty-first century. The GFSAD products are derived through multi-sensor remote sensing data (e.g., Landsat-series, Sentinel-series, MODIS, AVHRR), secondary data, and field-plot data and aims at documenting cropland...
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Global Food-and-Water Security-support Analysis Data (GFSAD)

The GFSAD is a NASA funded project (2023-2028) to provide highest-resolution global cropland data and their water use that contributes towards global food-and-water security in the twenty-first century. The GFSAD products are derived through multi-sensor remote sensing data (e.g., Landsat-series, Sentinel-series, MODIS, AVHRR), secondary data, and field-plot data and aims at documenting cropland...
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New Tools for Modern Land Management Decisions

In an era of rapid land use changes and shifting climates, it is imperative that land managers and policymakers have actionable and current information available for decision processes. In this work, we seek to meet these needs through new data products and decision support tools built on digital soil mapping, new vegetation cover maps, agency inventory and monitoring data sets, and cutting-edge...
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New Tools for Modern Land Management Decisions

In an era of rapid land use changes and shifting climates, it is imperative that land managers and policymakers have actionable and current information available for decision processes. In this work, we seek to meet these needs through new data products and decision support tools built on digital soil mapping, new vegetation cover maps, agency inventory and monitoring data sets, and cutting-edge...
Learn More