Christopher Soulard
Biography
Chris Soulard started with the U.S. Geological Survey in 2002 and has been with the Western Geographic Science Center since 2005. Early in his career, Chris applied his knowledge of remote sensing into projects focusing on multi-temporal change analyses using Landsat imagery and aerial photography, most notably the Land Cover Trends Project. Chris has since expanded his research scope to include community vulnerability assessments of tsunami and volcanic lahar hazards in the Pacific Northwest, terrestrial laser scanning to monitor soil and vegetation changes in the Mojave Desert and elsewhere, land-use/land-cover forecasting for the Western United States, and vegetation change analyses using Google Earth Engine. Chris Soulard serves as the Principal Investigator of the PLACE Project (Patterns in the Landscape – Analyses of Cause and Effect).
Science and Products
Volcanoes
As the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption showed, volcanoes pose significant threats to U.S. communities. Potential hazards posed by U.S. volcanoes include tephra falls, pyroclastic flows and surges, VOG, ballistic projectiles, lahar and lava flows. In collaboration with researchers from the USGS Volcano Hazards Program, the Hazards Vulnerability Team worked on better understanding and...
Web Mapping Application for a Historical Geologic Field Photo Collection
Geotagged photographs have become a useful medium for recording, analyzing, and communicating Earth science phenomena. Despite their utility, many field photographs are not published or preserved in a spatial or accessible format—oftentimes because of confusion about photograph metadata, a lack of stability, or user customization in free photo sharing platforms. After receiving a request to...
Patterns in the Landscape – Analyses of Cause and Effect
For two decades, USGS scientists with the Land Cover Trends team have used satellite data to study landscape change across the United States. Increasingly, research is focused on understanding why change occurs. Insights into the underlying causes of shifts in land use and land cover (LULC) will allow managers and stakeholders to make more informed decisions about how to respond to future...
Land Cover Trends
Land Cover Trends was a research project focused on understanding the rates, trends, causes, and consequences of contemporary U.S. land use and land cover change. The project spanned from 1999 to 2011. The research was supported by the Climate and Land Use Change Research and Development Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and was a collaborative effort with the U.S. Environmental...
Integration of Land Cover Trends Field Photography with an Online Map Service
The USGS National Land Cover Trends Project has the largest repository of field photos at the USGS (over 33,000 photos). Prior to CDI funding, Land Cover Trends had limited funding to make the national collection of photos available online for researchers, land managers, and citizens. The goal of this CDI project was to add geotags and keywords to the digital copies of each field photo and...
Integrating stream gage data and Landsat imagery to complete surface water records
This article is part of the Spring 2020 issue of the Earth Science Matters Newsletter.
Improved Urban Maps for the United States
This article is a part of the Fall 2019 issue of the Earth Science Matters Newsletter.
Newly Released Photo Catalog Puts US Landscapes On Exhibit
The U.S. Geological Survey announced today that it has made part of a huge national repository of geographically referenced USGS field photographs publicly available. USGS geographers developed a simple, easy-to-use mapping portal called the Land Cover Trends Field Photo Map.