Grace Beal
Science and Products
Remote Sensing of Ecosystem Condition and Resilience
Ecosystem condition tends to be highly dynamic in response to natural variability in climate, extreme climate events, disturbance events, and human land use activities. Satellite imagery provides a powerful tool to enhance our understanding of ecosystem change at a landscape scale. This research integrates diverse sources of satellite imagery with ancillary datasets to explore how ecosystems...
Tracking disturbance and inundation to identify wetland loss
Global trends in wetland degradation and loss have created an urgency to monitor wetland extent, as well as track the distribution and causes of wetland loss. Satellite imagery can be used to monitor wetlands over time, but few efforts have attempted to distinguish anthropogenic wetland loss from climate-driven variability in wetland extent. We present an approach to concurrently track land c...
Data Release for the Validation of the USGS Landsat Burned Area Product across the conterminous U.S.
Complete and accurate burned area map data are needed to document spatial and temporal patterns of fires, to quantify their drivers, and to assess the impacts on human and natural systems. In this study, we developed the Landsat Burned Area (BA) algorithm, an update from the Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable (BAECV) algorithm. We present the BA algorithm and products%
Landsat Burned Area Products Data Release - combined sensor products
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed and implemented an algorithm that identifies burned areas in temporally-dense time series of Landsat Analysis Ready Data (ARD) scenes to produce the Landsat Burned Area Products. The algorithm makes use of predictors derived from individual ARD Landsat scenes, lagged reference conditions, and change metrics between the scene and referenc
Landsat Burned Area Products Data Release - Landsat 5 TM products
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed and implemented an algorithm that identifies burned areas in temporally-dense time series of Landsat Analysis Ready Data (ARD) scenes to produce the Landsat Burned Area Products. The algorithm makes use of predictors derived from individual ARD Landsat scenes, lagged reference conditions, and change metrics between the scene and referenc
Landsat Burned Area Products Data Release - Landsat 7 ETM+ products
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed and implemented an algorithm that identifies burned areas in temporally-dense time series of Landsat Analysis Ready Data (ARD) scenes to produce the Landsat Burned Area Products. The algorithm makes use of predictors derived from individual ARD Landsat scenes, lagged reference conditions, and change metrics between the scene and referenc
Landsat Burned Area Products Data Release - Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS products
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed and implemented an algorithm that identifies burned areas in temporally-dense time series of Landsat Analysis Ready Data (ARD) scenes to produce the Landsat Burned Area Products. The algorithm makes use of predictors derived from individual ARD Landsat scenes, lagged reference conditions, and change metrics between the scene and referenc
New operational national satellite burned area product
Introduction Lack of consistent spatial and temporal fire information with relevant spatial resolution hinders land management and broad-scale assessments of fire activity, especially in the eastern United States and the Great Plains where fi re is important ecologically and culturally. Remote sensing can be used to monitor fi re activity, augment...
Hawbaker, Todd J.; Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Schmidt, Gail L.; Beal, Yen-Ju G.; Picotte, Joshua J.; Takacs, Joshua; Falgout, Jeff T.; Dwyer, John L. Isolating anthropogenic wetland loss by concurrently tracking inundation and land cover disturbance across the Mid-Atlantic Region, U.S.
Global trends in wetland degradation and loss have created an urgency to monitor wetland extent, as well as track the distribution and causes of wetland loss. Satellite imagery can be used to monitor wetlands over time, but few efforts have attempted to distinguish anthropogenic wetland loss from climate-driven variability in wetland extent. We...
Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Christensen, Jay; Beal, Yen-Ju G.; DeVries, Ben; Lang, Megan W.; Hwang, Nora; Mazzarella, Christine; Jones, John W. The Landsat Burned Area algorithm and products for the conterminous United States
Complete and accurate burned area map data are needed to document spatial and temporal patterns of fires, to quantify their drivers, and to assess the impacts on human and natural systems. In this study, we developed the Landsat Burned Area (BA) algorithm, an update from the Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable (BAECV) algorithm. Here,...
Hawbaker, Todd J.; Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Schmidt, Gail L.; Beal, Yen-Ju G.; Picotte, Joshua J.; Takacs, Joshua; Falgout, Jeff T.; Dwyer, John L. Evaluation of the U.S. Geological Survey Landsat burned area essential climate variable across the conterminous U.S. using commercial high-resolution imagery
The U.S. Geological Survey has produced the Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable (BAECV) product for the conterminous United States (CONUS), which provides wall-to-wall annual maps of burned area at 30 m resolution (1984–2015). Validation is a critical component in the generation of such remotely sensed products. Previous efforts to...
Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Brunner, Nicole M.; Beal, Yen-Ju G.; Hawbaker, Todd J. Validation of the USGS Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable (BAECV) across the conterminous United States
The Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable (BAECV), developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), capitalizes on the long temporal availability of Landsat imagery to identify burned areas across the conterminous United States (CONUS) (1984–2015). Adequate validation of such products is critical for their proper usage and interpretation....
Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Fairaux, Nicole; Beal, Yen-Ju G.; Hawbaker, Todd J. Mapping burned areas using dense time-series of Landsat data
Complete and accurate burned area data are needed to document patterns of fires, to quantify relationships between the patterns and drivers of fire occurrence, and to assess the impacts of fires on human and natural systems. Unfortunately, in many areas existing fire occurrence datasets are known to be incomplete. Consequently, the need to...
Hawbaker, Todd J.; Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Beal, Yen-Ju G.; Takacs, Joshua; Schmidt, Gail L.; Falgout, Jeff T.; Williams, Brad; Brunner, Nicole M.; Caldwell, Megan K.; Picotte, Joshua J.; Howard, Stephen M.; Stitt, Susan; Dwyer, John L.