Joel B Sankey, Ph.D.
Joel Sankey is a Research Geologist for the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center (SBSC), and the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center (GCMRC), in Flagstaff, Arizona.
I am also an adjunct professor of the School of Earth and Sustainability (SES) at Northern Arizona University. Previously, I was a Mendenhall Fellow with the USGS Western Geographic Science Center located at the University of Arizona in Tucson. I have a Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Science from the Geosciences Department at Idaho State University.
Overall, my research focus is on geomorphic and ecosystem processes and function of rivers and upland environments. I characterize and interpret physical and biological land surface change that occurs contemporarily at intra-annual to decadal time scales. I study changes that occur as a function of soil erosion and sediment transport. I also study biophysical processes that change the distribution and composition of vegetation. Many of the land surface changes I study are driven by disturbances caused by people, fires, flooding, and wind. My work is directly relevant to either management actions that are implemented by humans to mitigate these disturbances (e.g., large-scale planting and seeding) or management actions that have either intentionally (e.g., controlled river floods; prescribed fires; removal of invasive vegetation) or unintentionally (e.g., climate change) produced the disturbance and therefore are drivers of change. Increasingly, my work focuses on forecasting how future changes in climate, weather, and hydrology, will affect ecosystems and management outcomes.
Much of my work incorporates remote sensing with digital imagery and topographic data acquired from multispectral and LiDAR sensors on ground-based, airborne (including manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)), and satellite platforms. I also use detailed field-investigations for ecological and geomorphic assessment.
At the GCMRC, I lead the remote sensing group. I design our research and monitoring to be responsive to the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program (GCDAMP), a Federal Advisory Committee chartered by the US Department of Interior and chaired by the Undersecretary for Water and Science.
Science and Products
Riparian vegetation, Colorado River, and climate: five decades of spatio-temporal dynamics in the Grand Canyon with river regulation
Quantifying plant-soil-nutrient dynamics in rangelands: Fusion of UAV hyperspectral-LiDAR, UAV multispectral-photogrammetry, and ground-based LiDAR-digital photography in a shrub-encroached desert grassland
Geomorphic and sedimentary effects of modern climate change: Current and anticipated future conditions in the western United States
Associations between riparian plant morphological guilds and fluvial sediment dynamics along the regulated Colorado River in Grand Canyon
Case study: Thomas Fire
Effects of high flow experiments on riparian vegetation resources in Grand Canyon
High elevation sand/cultural Sites: The response of source-bordering aeolian dunefields to the 2012-2016 high flow experiments of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon (Extended Abstract)
The effects of topographic surveying technique and data resolution on the detection and interpretation of geomorphic change
Modelling gully-erosion susceptibility in a semi-arid region, Iran: Investigation of applicability of certainty factor and maximum entropy models
Fire changes the spatial distribution and sources of soil organic carbon in a grassland-shrubland transition zone
Geomorphic evolution of a gravel‐bed river under sediment‐starved vs. sediment‐rich conditions: River response to the world's largest dam removal
Understanding river response to sediment pulses is a fundamental problem in geomorphic process studies, with myriad implications for river management. However, because large sediment pulses are rare and usually unanticipated, they are seldom studied at field scale. We examine fluvial response to a massive (~20 Mt) sediment pulse released by the largest dam removal globally, on the Elwha River, Was
Examining forest structure with terrestrial lidar: Suggestions and novel techniques based on comparisons between scanners and forest treatments
On the development of a magnetic susceptibility‐based tracer for aeolian sediment transport research
Science and Products
Riparian vegetation, Colorado River, and climate: five decades of spatio-temporal dynamics in the Grand Canyon with river regulation
Quantifying plant-soil-nutrient dynamics in rangelands: Fusion of UAV hyperspectral-LiDAR, UAV multispectral-photogrammetry, and ground-based LiDAR-digital photography in a shrub-encroached desert grassland
Geomorphic and sedimentary effects of modern climate change: Current and anticipated future conditions in the western United States
Associations between riparian plant morphological guilds and fluvial sediment dynamics along the regulated Colorado River in Grand Canyon
Case study: Thomas Fire
Effects of high flow experiments on riparian vegetation resources in Grand Canyon
High elevation sand/cultural Sites: The response of source-bordering aeolian dunefields to the 2012-2016 high flow experiments of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon (Extended Abstract)
The effects of topographic surveying technique and data resolution on the detection and interpretation of geomorphic change
Modelling gully-erosion susceptibility in a semi-arid region, Iran: Investigation of applicability of certainty factor and maximum entropy models
Fire changes the spatial distribution and sources of soil organic carbon in a grassland-shrubland transition zone
Geomorphic evolution of a gravel‐bed river under sediment‐starved vs. sediment‐rich conditions: River response to the world's largest dam removal
Understanding river response to sediment pulses is a fundamental problem in geomorphic process studies, with myriad implications for river management. However, because large sediment pulses are rare and usually unanticipated, they are seldom studied at field scale. We examine fluvial response to a massive (~20 Mt) sediment pulse released by the largest dam removal globally, on the Elwha River, Was