Publications
Listed here are publications, reports and articles by the Land Change Science Program in the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area.
Filter Total Items: 1284
Vulnerability of different Colorado Plateau land types to drivers of change Vulnerability of different Colorado Plateau land types to drivers of change
Public lands are challenged by a range of pressures—changing climate, increasing visitation, resource extraction—and their effects can span spatial scales, often crossing land management jurisdictional boundaries. Research approaches which explicitly span jurisdictions can support strategies to contend with regional pressures. We assess management-relevant drivers of change—aridification
Authors
M. Allison Stegner, Jayne Belnap, Tara B.B. Bishop, Anna C. Knight, Travis W. Nauman, Michael C. Duniway
Sea-level rise in a coastal marsh: Linking increasing tidal inundation, decreasing soil strength and increasing pond expansion Sea-level rise in a coastal marsh: Linking increasing tidal inundation, decreasing soil strength and increasing pond expansion
Coastal marsh conversion into ponds, which may be triggered by sea-level rise, is considered an important driver of marsh loss and their valuable ecosystem services. Previous studies have focused on the role of wind waves in driving the expansion of interior marsh ponds, through lateral erosion of marsh edges surrounding the ponds. Here, we propose another mechanism between sea-level...
Authors
Mona Huyzentruyt, Lennert Schepers, Matt L. Kirwan, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Stijn Temmerman
Modeling carbon fluxes in tidal forested wetlands in the Mississippi river deltaic plain under various hydrologic conditions: Implications for river diversions Modeling carbon fluxes in tidal forested wetlands in the Mississippi river deltaic plain under various hydrologic conditions: Implications for river diversions
Our understanding of the impacts of climate change, sea-level rise (SLR), and freshwater management on the magnitude and variability of carbon fluxes in tidal forested wetlands remains limited. In this study, we applied a process-driven wetland biogeochemistry model, Wetland Carbon Assessment Tool—DeNitrification-DeComposition (WCAT-DNDC) model to explore responses of carbon fluxes in...
Authors
Hongqing Wang, Ken W. Krauss, Gary P. Shaffer, Brett Patton, Daniel Kroes, Gregory B. Noe, Zhaohua Dai, Lindsey Dettwiller, Carl C. Trettin
Extreme Potomac floods at Washington D.C. during the past 500 years Extreme Potomac floods at Washington D.C. during the past 500 years
Washington D.C. faces one of the highest 100-year flood risks of any major city along the U.S. East Coast. In addition to storm-surge inundation during hurricanes and nor'easters, water-level observations for Washington are strongly skewed by major floods on the Potomac River. Using geologic and historic records we find new evidence for ice-jam flooding at Georgetown during the Little...
Authors
Michael Toomey, Thomas M. Cronin, Jessica R. Rodysill, Julia Lynn Seidenstein, Debra A. Willard
Miocene evolution of the Humboldt Current Miocene evolution of the Humboldt Current
Diatom records from the East Pisco Basin (EPB) of southern Peru and offshore Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Hole 682 A reveal stepwise increases in the primary productivity of the Humboldt Current during the middle and late Miocene. Although diatoms are present back through the late middle Eocene, successively enhanced diatom production occurs during the Miocene in four steps. The first...
Authors
John A. Barron, Thomas J. DeVries, Jason J. Coenen
The surface is not superficial: Utilizing hyper-local thermal photogrammetry for pedestrian thermal comfort inquiry The surface is not superficial: Utilizing hyper-local thermal photogrammetry for pedestrian thermal comfort inquiry
The scale and magnitude of urban heating are often assessed using Satellite-Derived Land Surface Temperature (SD-LST). Yet, discrepancies in spatial resolution limit SD-LST’s ability to reflect pedestrian thermal experience, potentially leading to ineffective mitigation strategies. Hyper-local measurements of urban heat, defined as surface temperatures (TS) at the scale of pedestrian...
Authors
Logan Steinharter, Peter Christian Ibsen, Priyanka deSouza, Melissa R. McHale
Diurnal patterns of nitrous oxide fluxes from a seasonal prairie wetland Diurnal patterns of nitrous oxide fluxes from a seasonal prairie wetland
Wetlands have spatially and temporally dynamic nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes. Understanding diurnal patterns in N2O fluxes in wetlands can reveal short-term drivers and improve process-based models. An automated chamber system was used to determine N2O flux rates every 2.5 to 4 h in a prairie pothole wetland in North Dakota during the 2013 to 2014 growing seasons under ponded, moist, and...
Authors
Derek R. Faust, Brian Tangen, Sheel Bansal
Sentinel-2 based estimates of rangeland fractional cover and canopy gap class for the western United States Sentinel-2 based estimates of rangeland fractional cover and canopy gap class for the western United States
Rangelands are extensive ecosystems, providing important ecosystem services while undergoing continuous change. As a result, improved monitoring technologies can help better characterize vegetation change. Satellite remote sensing has proven effective in this regard, tracking vegetation dynamics at broad and fine scales. We leveraged the spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution of...
Authors
Brady W. Allred, Sarah E. McCord, Timothy J. Assal, Brandon T. Bestelmeyer, Chad S. Boyd, Alexander C. Brooks, Samantha M. Cady, Michael C. Duniway, Samuel D. Fuhlendorf, Shane A. Green, Georgia R. Harrison, Eric R. Jensen, Emily J. Kachergis, Anna C. Knight, Chloe M. Mattilio, Brian A. Mealor, David E. Naugle, Dylan O’Leary, Peter J. Olsoy, Erika S. Peirce, Jason R. Reinhardt, Robert K. Shriver, Joseph T. Smith, Jason D. Tack, Ashley M. Tanner, Evan P. Tanner, Dirac Twidwell, Nicholas P. Webb, Scott L. Morford
Land change, fire, and climate weaken carbon sink in the conterminous U.S. Land change, fire, and climate weaken carbon sink in the conterminous U.S.
The land carbon sink of the conterminous United States was evaluated using a bottom-up modeling framework and 30-meter land change data from 1985 to 2020. This cross-scale, cross-landscape, and cross-system approach tracked fractional land cover changes and applied regional model calibration. Results show average terrestrial and aquatic carbon sinks of +110 ± 37 and +19 ± 0.5 teragrams...
Authors
Jinxun Liu, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Zhiliang Zhu, Mark A. Cochrane, Qiang Zhou, Bin Wang, Grant Domke, Paul C. Selmants, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Qiuan Zhu, Tamara Wilson, Kristin B. Byrd, Eric Ward, Terry Sohl, Todd J. Hawbaker, Zhen Zhang, Christopher E. Soulard, Kimberly Wickland, Robert G. Striegl
Variation in soil organic carbon across a latitudinal chronosequence of mangrove poleward expansion Variation in soil organic carbon across a latitudinal chronosequence of mangrove poleward expansion
The critical carbon sink provided by coastal wetlands, known as blue carbon, can be affected by multiple aspects of climate change. One important example is warming-induced mangrove poleward expansion, which is shifting dominant plant cover across tropical–temperate transitional zones and altering ecosystem structure and function. We examined how mangrove expansion affects soil organic...
Authors
Yiyang Kang, Prakhin Assavapanuvat, Michael J. Osland, David A. Kaplan
Cosmic dust reveals dynamic shifts in central Arctic sea-ice coverage over the past 30,000 years Cosmic dust reveals dynamic shifts in central Arctic sea-ice coverage over the past 30,000 years
Arctic sea-ice loss affects biological productivity, sustenance in coastal communities, and geopolitics. Forecasting these impacts requires mechanistic understanding of how Arctic sea ice responds to climate change, but this is limited by scarce long-term records. We present continuous 30,000-year reconstructions of sea-ice coverage from the Arctic Ocean based on measurements of two...
Authors
Frank J. Pavia, Jesse Farmer, Laura Gemery, Thomas M. Cronin, Jonathan Treffkorn, Kenneth A. Farley
Greenhouse gas emissions from ditches in oil palm plantations on tropical peatlands in Malaysia Greenhouse gas emissions from ditches in oil palm plantations on tropical peatlands in Malaysia
Tropical peatlands, which store 20% of global peat carbon, are increasingly threatened by conversion to alternative land-uses such as oil palm plantations, pulp wood plantations, crop growth or other economic activities. This transformation involves peatland drainage, which lowers water tables, exposes peat to oxygen, and alters greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions: increasing carbon dioxide...
Authors
Kuno Kasak, Iryna Dronova, Kaido Soosaar, Lulie Melling, Wong Guan Xhuan, Faustina Sangok, Reti Ranniku, Jorge A. Villa, Sheel Bansal, Michael Peacock, Ülo Mander