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U.S. Department of the Interior
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Fire Danger Forecast Program generates several products that forecast the potential for large fires to occur across the conterminous United States. The Wildland Fire Potential Index (WFPI), which quantifies fire risk given fuel and weather conditions, is derived using satellite-based vegetation data, forecast weather data, and land cover classifications.
The 2020 western U.S. fire season was among the most extreme on record. Over 100 fires were active in September, the majority occurring in California, Oregon, and Washington, where over 16,000 square kilometers burned. The 2020 fire season exemplified patterns of increased wildfire size, number, timing, return frequency, and extent, which are linked to climate-driven changes in precipitation and temperature affecting fire ignition and severity.
Invasive annual grasses on public lands in the western United States are a problem for land managers. Early-season invasives (ESI) can out-compete native species for resources including water, and in many climates these nonnative species are expanding at a rapid rate. To address these challenges, managers need high-resolution data on ESI cover to quantify change as well as to develop and prioritize management strategies.
Developing maps of exotic annual grass (EAG) phenology allows researchers and land managers to track the timing and progression of EAG growing-season dynamics year to year. Alterations in phenology patterns can indicate changing environmental conditions such as progressively warming temperatures, which can cause the growing season to start earlier. In the western United States, EAGs have invaded shrub ecosystems for more than a century, and in that time a positive feedback cycle between fire and EAGs has developed.
Recent catastrophic wildfires in the western United States have led to loss of life and property and burned through some of the most iconic landscapes in the National Park Service (NPS).
Barrier islands, headlands, and coastal shorelines provide numerous ecosystem goods and services, including storm protection and erosion control for the mainland, habitat for fish and wildlife, salinity regulation in estuaries, carbon sequestration in marshes, and areas for recreation and tourism. These coastal features are dynamic environments; storms, wave energy, tides, currents, and relative sea-level rise are powerful forces that shape local geomorphology and habitat distribution.
The USGS Land Change, Monitoring, Assessments, and Projections (LCMAP) project was instituted to monitor and assess land use and land cover change through time, promote understanding of the causes and consequences of land change, and offer insight into the interactions between land change and climate change. LCMAP utilizes all available observations produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat Program to monitor change and to produce annual land change products.
The riparian corridors of the Lower Colorado River mainstem, the San Pedro and Virgin rivers were selected to measure riparian plant greenness and water use for the past 22 years (2000–2021). A revised ETa algorithm, Nagler ET(EVI2), was used following changes that incorporate gridded weather data (Daymet) and Landsat-derived 2-band Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI2).
Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are diverse communities of organisms including lichen, moss, and cyanobacteria that live on soil surfaces in dryland environments around the world. Although biocrusts are estimated to make up 12% of the planet’s terrestrial surface and play critical roles in water and carbon cycling, there is great uncertainty related to their distribution, function, and response to change.
This project utilizes Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to identify and monitor small-scale mining dredges operating on rivers in Guyana, South America. River dredging is an elusive activity that can be difficult to monitor using optical imagery due to the small spatial footprint, remote operating areas, and excessive cloud cover common to South America. SAR is an active remote sensing technology that uses longer wavelength signals (2–100 centimeters) that are unobstructed by weather and can be collected day or night.
