Terry Sohl
Terry Sohl is a Research Physical Scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Terry Sohl serves as the acting Chief of the Integrated Science and Applications Branch. After college he began his career with the Defense Intelligence Agency at Bollings Air Force Base in Washington, DC, working with a team exploiting the use of Landsat and classified image sources to support needs of the DoD and Intelligence communities. He began his career at USGS EROS in 1993, serving as a contractor on the original team to help develop the first National Land Cover Database (NLCD) using Landsat imagery. In subsequent years, he also was on the original team that developed the Land Cover Trends project strategy and data products, assessing US land change from 1973 to 2000. With a funded NASA proposal in 2005, he initiated EROS research and development of a land-change modeling capability, developing the Forecasting Scenarios of Land Use (FORE-SCE) framework to model both historical and future land use for time periods when remote sensing data are not available. He moved from the contractor to USGS in 2009, where land-change modeling has been the core of his research interests. He's led the development of many peer-reviewed journal publications and led work on associated applications assessing feedbacks of land use and climate change on biodiversity, hydrology, carbon and greenhouse gases, and regional weather and climate. He has served as the acting Chief for the Integrated Science and Applications Branch since March of 2021, where he has emphasized a broad Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection approach to EROS science that synthesizes research and development activities across multiple projects to provide comprehensive assessments of past, present, and future US land change.
More information on the work of his land-cover modeling group at USGS EROS may be found at:
https://landcover-modeling.cr.usgs.gov/
Science and Products
A cellular automata downscaling based 1 km global land use datasets (2010–2100)
Divergent projections of future land use in the United States arising from different models and scenarios
Modeled historical land use and land cover for the conterminous United States
Modelling regional land change scenarios to assess land abandonment and reforestation dynamics in the Pyrenees (France)
Simulating forest landscape disturbances as coupled human and natural systems
Ecosystem carbon stocks and sequestration potential of federal lands across the conterminous United States
Projection of corn production and stover-harvesting impacts on soil organic carbon dynamics in the U.S. Temperate Prairies
Using Landsat imagery to detect, monitor, and project net landscape change
Integrated climate and land use change scenarios for California rangeland ecosystem services: wildlife habitat, soil carbon, and water supply
Quantifying climate change mitigation potential in Great Plains wetlands for three greenhouse gas emission scenarios
Projecting the spatiotemporal carbon dynamics of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem from 2006 to 2050
Climate change and wildfire risk in an expanding wildland–urban interface: a case study from the Colorado Front Range Corridor
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A cellular automata downscaling based 1 km global land use datasets (2010–2100)
Global climate and environmental change studies require detailed land-use and land-cover(LULC) information about the past, present, and future. In this paper, we discuss a methodology for downscaling coarse-resolution (i.e., half-degree) future land use scenarios to finer (i.e., 1 km) resolutions at the global scale using a grid-based spatially explicit cellular automata (CA) model. We account forAuthorsXuecao Li, Le Yu, Terry L. Sohl, Nicholas Clinton, Wenyu Li, Zhiliang Zhu, Xiaoping Liu, Peng GongDivergent projections of future land use in the United States arising from different models and scenarios
A variety of land-use and land-cover (LULC) models operating at scales from local to global have been developed in recent years, including a number of models that provide spatially explicit, multi-class LULC projections for the conterminous United States. This diversity of modeling approaches raises the question: how consistent are their projections of future land use? We compared projections fromAuthorsTerry L. Sohl, Michael Wimberly, Volker C. Radeloff, David M. Theobald, Benjamin M. SleeterModeled historical land use and land cover for the conterminous United States
The landscape of the conterminous United States has changed dramatically over the last 200 years, with agricultural land use, urban expansion, forestry, and other anthropogenic activities altering land cover across vast swaths of the country. While land use and land cover (LULC) models have been developed to model potential future LULC change, few efforts have focused on recreating historical landAuthorsTerry L. Sohl, Ryan R. Reker, Michelle A. Bouchard, Kristi Sayler, Jordan Dornbierer, Steve Wika, Robert Quenzer, Aaron M. FrieszModelling regional land change scenarios to assess land abandonment and reforestation dynamics in the Pyrenees (France)
Over the last decades and centuries, European mountain landscapes have experienced substantial transformations. Natural and anthropogenic LULC changes (land use and land cover changes), especially agro-pastoral activities, have directly influenced the spatial organization and composition of European mountain landscapes. For the past sixty years, natural reforestation has been occurring due to a deAuthorsLaure Vacquie, Thomas Houet, Terry L. Sohl, Ryan R. Reker, Kristi SaylerSimulating forest landscape disturbances as coupled human and natural systems
Anthropogenic disturbances resulting from human land use affect forest landscapes over a range of spatial and temporal scales, with diverse influences on vegetation patterns and dynamics. These processes fall within the scope of the coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) concept, which has emerged as an important framework for understanding the reciprocal interactions and feedbacks that connectAuthorsMichael Wimberly, Terry L. Sohl, Zhihua Liu, Aashis LamsalEcosystem carbon stocks and sequestration potential of federal lands across the conterminous United States
Federal lands across the conterminous United States (CONUS) account for 23.5% of the CONUS terrestrial area but have received no systematic studies on their ecosystem carbon (C) dynamics and contribution to the national C budgets. The methodology for US Congress-mandated national biological C sequestration potential assessment was used to evaluate ecosystem C dynamics in CONUS federal lands at preAuthorsZhengxi Tan, Shuguang Liu, Terry L. Sohl, Yiping Wu, Claudia J. YoungProjection of corn production and stover-harvesting impacts on soil organic carbon dynamics in the U.S. Temperate Prairies
Terrestrial carbon sequestration potential is widely considered as a realistic option for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. However, this potential may be threatened by global changes including climate, land use, and management changes such as increased corn stover harvesting for rising production of cellulosic biofuel. Therefore, it is critical to investigate the dynamics of soil organic carboAuthorsYiping Wu, Shuguang Liu, Claudia J. Young, Devendra Dahal, Terry L. Sohl, Brian DavisUsing Landsat imagery to detect, monitor, and project net landscape change
Detailed landscape information is a necessary component to bird habitat conservation planning. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center has been providing information on the Earth’s surface for over 40 years via the continuous series of Landsat satellites. In addition to operating, processing, and disseminating satellite images, EROS is the home to naAuthorsRyan R. Reker, Terry L. Sohl, Alisa L. GallantIntegrated climate and land use change scenarios for California rangeland ecosystem services: wildlife habitat, soil carbon, and water supply
Context In addition to biodiversity conservation, California rangelands generate multiple ecosystem services including livestock production, drinking and irrigation water, and carbon sequestration. California rangeland ecosystems have experienced substantial conversion to residential land use and more intensive agriculture. Objectives To understand the potential impacts to rangeland ecosystem servAuthorsKristin B. Byrd, Lorraine E. Flint, Pelayo Alvarez, Frank Casey, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Christopher E. Soulard, Alan L. Flint, Terry L. SohlQuantifying climate change mitigation potential in Great Plains wetlands for three greenhouse gas emission scenarios
We examined opportunities for avoided loss of wetland carbon stocks in the Great Plains of the United States in the context of future agricultural expansion through analysis of land-use land-cover (LULC) change scenarios, baseline carbon datasets and biogeochemical model outputs. A wetland map that classifies wetlands according to carbon pools was created to describe future patterns of carbon lossAuthorsKristin B. Byrd, Jamie L. Ratliff, Anne Wein, Norman B. Bliss, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Terry L. Sohl, Zhengpeng LiProjecting the spatiotemporal carbon dynamics of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem from 2006 to 2050
BackgroundClimate change and the concurrent change in wildfire events and land use comprehensively affect carbon dynamics in both spatial and temporal dimensions. The purpose of this study was to project the spatial and temporal aspects of carbon storage in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) under these changes from 2006 to 2050. We selected three emission scenarios and produced simulations wAuthorsShengli Huang, Shuguang Liu, Jinxun Liu, Devendra Dahal, Claudia Young, Brian Davis, Terry L. Sohl, Todd Hawbaker, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Zhiliang ZhuClimate change and wildfire risk in an expanding wildland–urban interface: a case study from the Colorado Front Range Corridor
Context Wildfire is a particular concern in the wildland–urban interface (WUI) of the western United States where human development occurs close to flammable natural vegetation. Objectives (1) Assess the relative influences of WUI expansion versus climate-driven fire regime change on spatial and temporal patterns of burned WUI, and (2) determine whether WUI developed in the future will have higAuthorsZhihua Liu, Michael C. Wimberly, Aashis Lamsal, Terry L. Sohl, Todd Hawbaker - Science
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