Satellite

Keeping LANDFIRE Data Current – It’s a Matter of Disturbance

Submitted by tadamson on

LANDFIRE’s latest directive is to provide agency leaders and managers with common “all-lands” datasets for strategic fire and resource management planning and analysis covering the 50 States, Puerto Rico, and insular territories on an annual basis. This mandate requires near-continuous mapping of landscape-level change (disturbance) and updating more than 20 geospatial products at 30-meter resolution.

Mapping Barrier Island Habitats for Monitoring and Adaptive Management

Submitted by tadamson on

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.

Riparian Vegetation Trends in Evapotranspiration

Submitted by tadamson on

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).

Remote Sensing Time Series Research for Land Change Science Products

Submitted by tadamson on

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.

Exotic Annual Grass Phenology in Western U.S. Rangelands

Submitted by tadamson on

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.

Detecting Early Season Invasive Plants Using Remote Sensing to Inform Monitoring, Control, and Restoration

Submitted by tadamson on

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.

Assessment of Cobalt Mining Activity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia

Submitted by tadamson on

Cobalt, designated a critical mineral by the European Union and the United States, is a crucial component of lithium-ion batteries, which are found in cell phones, electric vehicles, and personal computing devices. Much remains unknown about the global cobalt supply chain, a large part of which originates in the Copperbelt region of central Africa. Over half of the world’s cobalt supply is produced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where cobalt is mined in both large-scale and artisanal or small-scale operations.

Artisanal Mining River Dredge Detection Using Synthetic Aperture Radar

Submitted by tadamson on

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.