Vanderhoof, M.K., Alexander, L.C. (2016) The role of lake expansion in altering the wetland landscape of the Prairie Pothole Region. Wetlands, 36(2):309-321, DOI:10.1007/s13157-015-0728-1.
Melanie Vanderhoof
Biography
Melanie Vanderhoof received her B.S. degree in Biology and Society from Cornell University in 2004 and a M.S. degree in Geography from San Francisco State University in 2007. After working as a biologist for several years, she pursued graduate school and received a PhD in Geography from Clark University in 2014. Following an ORISE Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, she joined the U.S. Geological Survey as a research geographer in 2015. She is currently with the USGS, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center in Denver, CO. Her research focuses on using satellite imagery to understand how ecosystems change over time. She is particularly interested in surface water dynamics and disturbance events, such as fire and insect outbreaks.
Science and Products
Date published: January 1, 2020
Status: Active Drought and Disturbances as Drivers of Long-Term Ecological Transformation and Risk
Forested areas in the Western U.S. that are impacted by disturbances such as fire and drought have increased in recent decades. This trend is likely to continue, with the increase in frequency and extent of wildfire activity being especially concerning. Resource managers need reliable scientific information to better understand wildfire occurrence, which can vary substantially across...
Attribution: Climate Adaptation Science Centers
Date published: May 31, 2019
Status: Active 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...
Contacts: Melanie Vanderhoof
Date published: October 6, 2014
Status: Active North American Analysis and Synthesis on the Connectivity of "Geographically Isolated Wetlands" to Downstream Waters
Geographically Isolated Wetlands (GIWs) occur along gradients of hydrologic and ecological connectivity and isolation, even within wetland types (e.g., forested, emergent marshes) and functional classes (e.g., ephemeral systems, permanent systems, etc.). Within a given watershed, the relative positions of wetlands and open-waters along these gradients influence the type and magnitude of their...
Attribution: John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis
Year Published: 2020
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.
Year Published: 2020
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.
Year Published: 2020
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.
Year Published: 2020
Mapping forested wetland inundation in the Delmarva Peninsula, USA: Use of deep learning model
The Delmarva Peninsula in the eastern United States is dominated by thousands of small, forested depressional wetlands that are highly sensitive to climate change and climate variability but provide critical ecosystem services. Due to the relatively small size of these depressional wetlands and occurrence under forest canopy cover, it is very...
Du, Ling; McCarty, Greg W.; Zhang, Xinhow; Lang, Megan W.; Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Lin, Xian-Dan; Huang, Chengquan; Lee, Sangchul; Zou, Zhenhua
Year Published: 2020
Spatiotemporal variability of modeled watershed scale surface-depression storage and runoff for the conterminous United States
This study uses the explores the viability of a proxy model calibration strategy through assessment of the spatiotemporal variability of surface-depression storage and runoff generated with the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Hydrologic Model (NHM) infrastructure for hydrologic response units (HRUs; n=109,951) across the conterminous United...
Driscoll, Jessica M.; Hay, Lauren; Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Viger, Roland J.
Year Published: 2019
Influence of multi-decadal land use, irrigation practices and climate on riparian corridors across the Upper Missouri River Headwaters Basin, Montana
The Upper Missouri River Headwaters Basin (36,400 km2) depends on its river corridors to support irrigated agriculture and world-class trout fisheries. We evaluated trends (1984-2016) in riparian wetness, an indicator of riparian condition, in peak irrigation months (June, July, August) for 158 km2 of riparian area across the basin using the...
Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Christensen, J.R.; Alexander, Laurie C.
Year Published: 2019
The potential role of very high-resolution imagery to characterise lake, wetland and stream systems across the Prairie Pothole Region, United States
Aquatic features critical to watershed hydrology range widely in size from narrow, shallow streams to large, deep lakes. In this study we evaluated wetland, lake, and river systems across the Prairie Pothole Region to explore where pan-sharpened high-resolution (PSHR) imagery, relative to Landsat imagery, could provide additional data on surface...
Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Lane, Charles R.
Year Published: 2018
Estimating soil respiration in a subalpine landscape using point, terrain, climate and greenness data
Landscape carbon (C) flux estimates are necessary for assessing the ability of terrestrial ecosystems to buffer further increases in anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Advances in remote sensing have allowed for coarse-scale estimates of gross primary productivity (GPP) (e.g., MODIS 17), yet efforts to assess spatial patterns in...
Berryman, Erin Michele; Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Bradford, John B.; Hawbaker, Todd J.; Henne, Paul D.; Burns, Sean P.; Frank, John M.; Birdsey, Richard A.; Ryan, Michael G.
Year Published: 2018
It matters when you measure it: Using snow-cover Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to isolate post-fire conifer regeneration
Landsat Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is commonly used to monitor post-fire green-up; however, most studies do not distinguish new growth of conifer from deciduous or herbaceous species, despite potential consequences for local climate, carbon and wildlife. We found that dual season (growing and snow cover) NDVI improved our...
Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Hawbaker, Todd J.
Year Published: 2018
Time series of high-resolution images enhances efforts to monitor post-fire condition and recovery, Waldo Canyon fire, Colorado, USA
Interpretations of post-fire condition and rates of vegetation recovery can influence management priorities, actions and perception of latent risks from landslides and floods. In this study, we used the Waldo Canyon fire (2012, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA) as a case study to explore how a time series (2011–2016) of high-resolution images can...
Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Burt, Clifton; Hawbaker, Todd J.Attribution: Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program, Region 7: Upper Colorado Basin, United States of America, Wildland Fire Science
View Citation
Vanderhoof, M.K., Burt, C., Hawbaker, T.J. 2018. Time series of high-resolution images enhances efforts to monitor post-fire condition and recovery, Waldo Canyon fire, Colorado, USA. International Journal of Wildland Fire, doi:10.1071/WF17177.
Year Published: 2018
Efficient delineation of nested depression hierarchy in digital elevation models for hydrological analysis using level-set method
In terrain analysis and hydrological modeling, surface depressions (or sinks) in a digital elevation model (DEM) are commonly treated as artifacts and thus filled and removed to create a depressionless DEM. Various algorithms have been developed to identify and fill depressions in DEMs during the past decades. However, few studies have attempted...
Wu, Qiusheng; Lane, Charles R.; Wang, Lei; Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Christensen, Jay R.; Liu, HongxingAttribution: Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program, Region 7: Upper Colorado Basin
View Citation
Wu, Q., C.R. Lane, L. Wang, M.K. Vanderhoof, J.R. Christensen, and H. Liu. 2018. “Efficient Delineation of Nested Depression Hierarchy in Digital Elevation Models for Hydrological Analysis Using Level-Set Method.” Journal of the American Water Resources Association 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/1752-1688.12689.
Year Published: 2018
Applying high-resolution imagery to evaluate restoration-induced changes in stream condition, Missouri River Headwaters Basin, Montana
Degradation of streams and associated riparian habitat across the Missouri River Headwaters Basin has motivated several stream restoration projects across the watershed. Many of these projects install a series of beaver dam analogues (BDAs) to aggrade incised streams, elevate local water tables, and create natural surface water storage by...
Vanderhoof, Melanie K.; Burt, CliftonAttribution: Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program, Region 7: Upper Colorado Basin
View Citation
Vanderhoof, M.K,, Burt, C. (2018) Applying high-resolution imagery to evaluate restoration-induced changes in stream condition, Missouri River Headwaters Basin, Montana. Remote Sensing, 10, 913: doi:10.3390/rs10060913.
Pre-USGS Publications
U.S. EPA (2015) Connectivity of Streams and Wetlands to Downstream Waters: A Review and Synthesis of the Scientific Evidence (Final Report). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-14/475F. (co-author on report)
Vanderhoof, M., Williams, C. (2015) Persistence of evapotranspiration impacts from mountain pine beetle outbreaks in lodgepole pine forests, south-central Rocky Mountains. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 200:78-91.
Ghimire, B., Williams, C.A., Collatz, G.J., Vanderhoof, M., Rogan, J., Kulaowski, D., Masek, J.G. (2015) Large carbon release legacy from bark beetle outbreaks across the Western United States. Global Change Biology, 21(8):3087-3101.
Vanderhoof, M., Williams, C.A., Shuai, Y., Jarvis, D., Kulakowski, D., Masek, J. (2014) Albedo-induced radiative forcing from mountain pine beetle outbreaks in forests, south-central Rocky Mountains: magnitude, persistence, and relation to outbreak severity. Biogeosciences, 11:563-575.
Williams, C., Vanderhoof, M., Khomik, M., Ghimire, B. (2014). Post-clearcut dynamics of carbon, water and energy changes in a mid-latitude temperate, deciduous broadleaf forest environment. Global Change Biology, 20(3):992-1007.
Khomik, M., Williams, C.A., Vanderhoof, M.K., MacLean, R., Dillen, S.Y. (2014). On the causes of rising gross ecosystem productivity in a regenerating clearcut environment: leaf area, species composition, or environmental conditions. Tree Physiology, 34:686-700.
Vanderhoof, M., Williams, C.A., Ghimire, B., & Rogan, J. (2013) Impact of mountain pine beetle outbreaks on forest albedo and TOA radiative forcing , as derived from MODIS, Rocky Mountains, USA. Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences, 118:1461-1471.
Vanderhoof, M., Williams, C.A., Pasay, M., & Ghimire, B. (2013) Controls on the rate of CO2 emission from woody debris in clearcut and coniferous forest environments of central Massachusetts. Biogeochemistry, 114:299-311.
Ghimire, B., Williams, C.A, Collatz, G.J., & Vanderhoof, M. (2012) Fire induced regional carbon emissions and fluxes derived by parameterizing post-fire carbon flux trajectories for western United States forests: Accounting for variation across forest types, fire severity, and carbon pools. Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences, 117:1-29.
Vanderhoof, M. , B. Holzman & C. Rogers. (2009) Predicting the distribution of perennial pepperweed, Lepidium latifolium, San Francisco Bay Area, California. Invasive Plant Science and Management, 2(3):260-269.