NPS Submissions

Fire Effects in the Santa Monica Mountains NRA

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

On February 11, 2013, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SAMO) staff cheered when we saw rocket contrails from the launch of Landsat 8 a few miles north of the park. Barely 3 months later, the Springs Fire (May 2, 2013) burned 25,000 acres of parkland, and NPS GIS and remote sensing specialists were using the very first publicly released Landsat 8 images to map burn severity. Maps visualizing Burned Area Reflectance Classification (BARC) imagery helped park scientists and resource managers assess effects of the Springs Fire.

Mapping Permafrost Thaw Erosion Features

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

NPS used high-resolution IKONOS satellite images and a combination of manual and computer-assisted methods to map slumps and small landslides caused by thaw of permafrost in Alaska's Arctic national parks.  These five NPS units cover over 8 million ha, about a quarter of all the NPS-managed land in the USA.  We found over 2,000 active-layer detachments (ALD) and over 700 retrogressive thaw slumps (RTS).  Re-mapping at 5- to 10-year intervals is planned to determine trends in the number, area, and distribution of these features.

Object-Based Image Analysis of Salt Marsh

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve (TIMU), Jacksonville, FL, contains thousands of acres of healthy and productive salt marsh. These salt marshes provide crucial habitat to a wide variety of organisms but are threatened by a variety of influences such as sea-level rise and upland development. The National Park Service Water Resources Division is helping TIMU park management better understand landscape level changes in the marsh. Color infrared orthoimagery collected by the U.S.

Putting Some Backbone in Coastal National Parks

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

One of the key early steps in preparing for sea-level rise and storm surge is ensuring that the geodetic “backbone,” the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) benchmarks, have long-term viability and provide complete coverage for park coastal zones. This task was just completed for the northeast coastal national parks by the University of Rhode Island and the National Park Service (NPS).

Reference Maps for Lake Monitoring Program

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

The Alaska Shallow Lake Monitoring Program, part of the NPS Inventory and Monitoring Program, monitors the water quantity and chemistry of shallow lakes along with the composition of the vegetation communities associated with the lakes in six national parks and preserves in Alaska. In order to find and identify the lakes that are selected for sampling, maps are produced using high-resolution satellite imagery such as SPOT-5 or IKONOS and 1:63,360 scale topographic map layers.

Under Trees and Water at Crater Lake National Park

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

The 2010 lidar survey of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, penetrated forested terrain to reveal surface features of the ignimbrite (pyroclastic flow deposit) from the climactic caldera-forming eruption in spectacular detail.  This eruption occurred over 7,000 years ago, culminating in the collapse of Mt. Mazama to form Crater Lake.  In late July, Charlie Bacon and Joel Robinson of the U.S.