Geospatial and Remote Sensing Applications

As public, tribal, and military lands continue to experience rapid change brought on by fire, invasive species, and drought, there is a growing need for science-management partnerships to apply innovative research and technologies to support decision-making at an accelerated pace.

The USGS Southwest Biological Science Center is coordinating the Southwest Fire Innovation Landscape Network to prepare fire and natural resource managers for rapidly changing fire landscapes by conducting research and building science-management partnerships. The network develops advanced tools and technologies to assess fuel loads and the effectiveness of fuel treatments, understand wildfire...

Through a collaborative effort with multiple state and federal agencies, university researchers, and individual stakeholders, we are producing a set of predictive seasonal habitat maps for greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus) spanning the entirety of the species’ U.S. distribution. This is the largest habitat modeling effort of its kind for the species and uses a large, compiled...

USGS researchers are using remote-sensing and other broadscale datasets to study and predict recovery of sagebrush across the sage-grouse range, assessing influence of disturbance, restoration treatments, soil moisture, and other ecological conditions on trends in sagebrush cover. The results will be used to inform conservation prioritization models, economic analyses, projections of future...

Arid shrublands of western North America face growing threats from disturbances such as wildfire, drought, and invasive species. These threats are increasingly altering the sagebrush ( Artemisia species) biome and degrading habitat for species of conservation concern such as greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus). Effective management and restoration are needed to slow or reverse these...

City of Rocks National Reserve and Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve are lands managed by the National Park Service that contain ecologically valuable stands of sagebrush and unique forest communities that are at risk due to wildfire and invasion by exotic annual grasses. We are working to determine the extent of invasion and to provide park managers with wildfire risk assessments...

In an era of rapid land use changes, 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 analytical frameworks...

Drought, hotter temperatures, and insect outbreaks are affecting dryland ecosystems across the globe. Pinon-juniper (PJ) woodlands are a widespread vegetation type common to drylands of North America, which have been hit particularly hard by a warming climate. Specifically, mass tree die-off events are transforming PJ woodland structure, composition, and distributions. This project aims to...

Wildlife management is frequently conducted to benefit a single species, despite evidence that suggests such an approach often fails to adequately address the needs of other species within a region. Managing for multiple species’ habitat requirements is even more critical when large scale habitat management efforts change vegetation conditions at the landscape scale, or when management occurs at...

Soil-climate describes the temperature and moisture conditions important for plant growth and function. Soil condition patterns determine which vegetation is most abundant, thus controlling which habitats, invasive species, fuels, and economic activities are present in a region. Here, we use a model to simulate the vertical movement of water in a soil profile to provide insights into landscape...

Soil conditions are a key part of functioning ecosystem and affect the distribution and abundance of plants, forage production, and habitat patterns. The distribution of soil conditions, as well as other environmental factors such as precipitation, temperature, geology, topography, and vegetation determine the patterns and dynamics of wildlife habitats and biodiversity across the landscape. We...

We are investigating ecosystem transitions and thresholds in the sagebrush steppe, studying factors influencing the shift from native to invaded plant communities after disturbances like fire. Our research tests region-wide resistance and resilience models, focusing on real-world recovery patterns, pre-fire conditions, plant succession, and land management treatments.