Bruce K Wylie, PhD, MS
Bruce’s focuses on remote sensing, GIS, and machine learning to produce useful spatiotemporal products to aid natural resource management. This includes invasive species, permafrost and forage change relate to droughts. Recent applications of Landsat/Sentinel harmonized data and high-performance computing are facilitating the transition of several 250m MODIS products to 30m.
Biography
Dr. Bruce Wylie has been involved in remote sensing applications to support natural resource management for since 1985, both internationally (Niger, Kazakhstan, and China) and domestically (Alaska and the western U.S.). Dr. Wylie has applied data mining approaches to map rangeland and crop carbon fluxes, surface water, depth to the top of the permafrost, probability of land cover change in Alaska, soil organic layer thickness, invasive cheatgrass, switchgrass biofuels, livestock forage drought impacts, and leveraging harmonized Landsat and Sentinel data to allow invasive species mapping at a 30m resolution. He developed an approach that isolates vegetation dynamics associated with weather from management and disturbance dynamics to aid ecosystem monitoring and understanding. He has a long history of collecting field data for remote sensing applications. He was a member of the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium team contributing to the development of the 2001 National Land Cover Database data mining mapping approaches. Dr. Wylie’s service to his discipline includes involvement on multiple master’s and doctoral students’ graduate committees at multiple universities.
Education: Dr. Wylie has a BS in Range Management from the University of Montana (Range Management/Forestry) and a MS and PhD from the New Mexico State University in Range Science with a minor in Remote Sensing.
Science and Products
Near-Real-Time Cheatgrass Monitoring
The USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center produces near-real-time estimates of annual herbaceous land cover for the Great Basin, Snake River Plain, Wyoming, and contiguous areas in the United States.
Estimates are based on enhanced Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (eMODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data at 250-meter resolution.
Monitoring Arctic and boreal ecosystems through the assimilation of field-based studies, remote sensing, and modelling
Northern high-latitude regions are experiencing climate warming at rates nearly double that of lower latitudes, leading to warming and thawing of permafrost-affected soils, decomposition of previously frozen organic matter and increases in the number of large fire years, which can substantially impact social and environmental systems. Monitoring Arctic and boreal ecosystems of northern...
Identifying Lands Suitable for Biofuel Feedstock Crops by Dynamic Modeling of Ecosystem Performance
Demand for biofuel products is expected to increase as the world seeks alternatives to fossil fuels. Currently, ethanol produced from Midwest corn is the most common biofuel product in the United States. The negative environmental effects caused by corn-based biofuel development include soil erosion, water quality impairment from pesticides and fertilizer, and demand for water for irrigation....
Cheatgrass Dieoff Time-series Dynamics (2000 – 2010)
Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) is a winter annual grass that has invaded and altered the shrub steppe ecosystem in the Great Basin for about 100 years. This highly competitive grass invades recently disturbed areas and then outcompetes most native vegetation by using requisite resources like soil water and nutrients in early spring before other native plants. It also can alter its phenotype...
Carbon Flux Quantification in the Great Plains
Gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Re) are the fundamental environmental characteristics which drive carbon exchanges between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere (Chapin and others, 2009), although other exchanges of carbon, for example, export or direct oxidation (Lovett and others, 2006) can modify net ecosystem production (NEP).
Ecosystem Performance, Productivity and Sustainability
Remotely-sensed data forms the backbone of the large-scale maps, models and assessments created at EROS to advance the understanding of Ecosystem Performance, Productivity and Sustainability.
Modeling Effects of Climate Change on Cheatgrass Die-Off Areas in the Northern Great Basin
Cheatgrass began invading the Great Basin about 100 years ago, changing large parts of the landscape from a rich, diverse ecosystem to one where a single invasive species dominates. Cheatgrass dominated areas experience more fires that burn more land than in native ecosystems, resulting in economic and resource losses. Therefore, the reduced production, or absence, of cheatgrass in previously...
EROS Work Informs USGS Sagebrush Ecosystem Efforts
The case for sagebrush habitat as the iconic landscape of the American West is a fairly one easy to make.
New Study Provides the First Comprehensive, Long-term Look at Alaska’s Changing Ecosystems
New research has revealed significant changes to Alaska’s landscape in recent decades
USGS Projects Large Loss of Alaska Permafrost by 2100
Using statistically modeled maps drawn from satellite data and other sources, U.S. Geological Survey scientists have projected that the near-surface permafrost that presently underlies 38 percent of boreal and arctic Alaska would be reduced by 16 to 24 percent by the end of the 21st century under widely accepted climate scenarios.