A female cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl (Glaucidium brasilianum cactorum) in N. Sonora, Mexico, June 2022. Photo by Aaron Flesch, University of Arizona, Tucson, used with permission by USGS.
Pamela Nagler, Ph.D.
Expertise: Remote sensing applications in ecohydrology with a focus on scaling ground-based evapotranspiration (water use) measurements of plants in riparian ecosystems, their uplands and adjacent agriculture fields. Applications include mapping vegetation communities and phenological change in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts and the transboundary region of northwestern Mexico and southwestern U.S.
Dr. Pamela Nagler’s interest in landscapes developed naturally through her experiences with a variety of lands and cultures throughout her early years. She first worked with USGS as a hydrological technician with the Water Resources Division, mentored by Drs. Jake Peters and Jamie Shanley. After obtaining a B.S. in Geography, Pamela interned with the late Barry Bishop (a member of the first American team to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1963) at the National Geographic Society in Washington DC, where she was greatly influenced to pursue her passion for geography as a career. She then worked for the Solid Waste Division of the EPA followed by a couple of years with the Defense Mapping Agency. At the University of Maryland at College Park, Pamela earned an M.A. in Geography with an emphasis on Land Remote Sensing; her Advisor, Dr. Sam Goward, served as the Landsat Science Team Leader from 1992 and completed Landsat’s Enduring Legacy: 50 years in 2017. As his mentee, she gained experience and skills needed to address environmental applications using remote sensing tools. During her Master’s program, Pamela had a research assistantship with the USDA Agriculture Research Service under the guidance of Dr. Craig Daughtry, and helped develop techniques using hyperspectral data to distinguish soil from litter in the landscape. Pamela continued this research in Japan with a fellowship sponsored by NSF. Dr. Yoshio Inoue, her academic host at the Japan National Institute of Agro-Environmental Studies in 1996-1997, encouraged Pamela to return to the US to continue her academic studies. Pamela spent time in ten Asian countries before starting her Ph.D. research with Dr. Alfredo Huete at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. Pamela's dissertation research used remote sensing tools to study environmental applications in the Colorado River delta in Mexico and her post-doctoral work with Dr. Edward Glenn was funded through a NASA grant. With direction from Ed Glenn, she studied seaweed productivity while living in Molokai, Hawaii, phytoremediation at DOE Legacy Mine sites on Navajo Nation near Monument Valley, and conservation and policy of the Colorado River Delta in the Borderlands of the U.S. and Mexico. Pamela received a PECASE Award at the White House with POTUS Obama in 2010, became a Kavli Fellow with the Academy of Sciences in 2011, and was internationally recognized by CSIRO in 2013. Pamela spent a year at CSIRO in their Land and Water Division in Adelaide, South Australia. Pamela serves students in three departments at the University of Arizona, including SNRE, SWES and more recently, Biosystems Engineering. She also serves on three journal Editorial Boards and as a Board Member of the FWS Sonoran Joint Venture.
Education and Certifications
Ph.D. - 2001, Soil, Water, and Environmental Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
M.A. - 1997, Geography, University of Maryland. College Park, MD.
B.S. - 1989, Geography, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
Science and Products
Measuring Water Requirements Of Riparian Regions in the Southwestern U.S. Compared with Drylands in Australia
Using Imagery to Monitor Riparian and Upland Vegetation Along the San Pedro River, Arizona
Global Croplands and Their Water Use for Food Security in the Twenty-first Century
Monthly Ensemble Mean Evapotranspiration (EMET) Product for the Los Planes basin in Baja California Sur, Mexico from January 2006 through December 2021: U.S. Geological Survey Data Release
Remotely-sensed observations of restoration sites of the riparian corridor of the Colorado River Delta in Mexico, 2013-2022
Remotely-sensed observations of the unrestored riparian corridor of the Colorado River Delta in Mexico, 2019-2022
Random forest classification data developed from multitemporal Landsat 8 spectral data and phenology metrics for a subregion in Sonoran and Mojave Deserts, April 2013 – December 2020
Uncultivated plant water use (riparian evapotranspiration) and consumptive use data for selected areas of the Little Colorado River watershed on the Navajo Nation, Arizona
Colorado River Delta Project: A compilation of vegetation indices, phenology assessment metrics, and estimates of evapotranspiration for circular bird plots in the Colorado River delta between 2000-2020 (ver. 1.0)
Colorado River Project: A compilation of vegetation indices, phenology assessment metrics, estimates of evapotranspiration and change maps for five reaches between Hoover and Morelos Dams on the Lower Colorado River, for nearly the last two decades
Colorado River Project: Average growing season evapotranspiration and vegetation index remote-sensing data for the riparian corridor of the Colorado River Delta in Mexico from 2000-2020
Colorado River Delta Project: A compilation of vegetation indices, phenology assessment metrics, estimates of evapotranspiration and change maps for seven reaches of the delta's 150 km region, for nearly the last two decades
A female cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl (Glaucidium brasilianum cactorum) in N. Sonora, Mexico, June 2022. Photo by Aaron Flesch, University of Arizona, Tucson, used with permission by USGS.
Single species stand of nonnative tamarisk on the Lower Colorado River at Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, California
Single species stand of nonnative tamarisk on the Lower Colorado River at Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, California
On connecting hydro-social parameters to vegetation greenness differences in an evolving groundwater-dependent ecosystem
Effect of water delivery and irrigation for riparian restoration in the Colorado River Delta, Mexico
An ensemble mean method for remote sensing of actual evapotranspiration to estimate water budget response across a restoration landscape
Avian communities respond to plant and landscape composition in actively revegetated floodplains of the Colorado River delta in Mexico
Strategic restoration planning for land birds in the Colorado River Delta, Mexico
Crop water use dynamics over arid and semi-arid croplands in the lower Colorado River Basin
Supplying ecosystem services on US rangelands
A river basin spatial model to quantitively advance understanding of riverine tree response dynamics to water availability and hydrological management
Random forest classification of multitemporal Landsat 8 spectral data and P\phenology metrics for land cover mapping in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts
Mapping vegetation index-derived actual evapotranspiration across croplands using the Google Earth Engine platform
Riparian plant evapotranspiration and consumptive use for selected areas of the Little Colorado River watershed on the Navajo Nation
Section 5: Remote sensing of vegetation in the riparian corridor of the Colorado River’s delta 2013-2018
Science and Products
Measuring Water Requirements Of Riparian Regions in the Southwestern U.S. Compared with Drylands in Australia
Using Imagery to Monitor Riparian and Upland Vegetation Along the San Pedro River, Arizona
Global Croplands and Their Water Use for Food Security in the Twenty-first Century
Monthly Ensemble Mean Evapotranspiration (EMET) Product for the Los Planes basin in Baja California Sur, Mexico from January 2006 through December 2021: U.S. Geological Survey Data Release
Remotely-sensed observations of restoration sites of the riparian corridor of the Colorado River Delta in Mexico, 2013-2022
Remotely-sensed observations of the unrestored riparian corridor of the Colorado River Delta in Mexico, 2019-2022
Random forest classification data developed from multitemporal Landsat 8 spectral data and phenology metrics for a subregion in Sonoran and Mojave Deserts, April 2013 – December 2020
Uncultivated plant water use (riparian evapotranspiration) and consumptive use data for selected areas of the Little Colorado River watershed on the Navajo Nation, Arizona
Colorado River Delta Project: A compilation of vegetation indices, phenology assessment metrics, and estimates of evapotranspiration for circular bird plots in the Colorado River delta between 2000-2020 (ver. 1.0)
Colorado River Project: A compilation of vegetation indices, phenology assessment metrics, estimates of evapotranspiration and change maps for five reaches between Hoover and Morelos Dams on the Lower Colorado River, for nearly the last two decades
Colorado River Project: Average growing season evapotranspiration and vegetation index remote-sensing data for the riparian corridor of the Colorado River Delta in Mexico from 2000-2020
Colorado River Delta Project: A compilation of vegetation indices, phenology assessment metrics, estimates of evapotranspiration and change maps for seven reaches of the delta's 150 km region, for nearly the last two decades
A female cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl (Glaucidium brasilianum cactorum) in N. Sonora, Mexico, June 2022. Photo by Aaron Flesch, University of Arizona, Tucson, used with permission by USGS.
A female cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl (Glaucidium brasilianum cactorum) in N. Sonora, Mexico, June 2022. Photo by Aaron Flesch, University of Arizona, Tucson, used with permission by USGS.
Single species stand of nonnative tamarisk on the Lower Colorado River at Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, California
Single species stand of nonnative tamarisk on the Lower Colorado River at Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, California