Lidar (terrestrial or bathymetric)

Coastal erosion, exacerbated by sea-level rise, threatens both infrastructure and natural areas around the world.

The USGS National Geospatial Program, National Land Imaging Program, and other elements of USGS, have a compelling national interest in operationalizing technologies that increase the accuracy and efficiency of mapping the Nation.

Vegetation structure is a key attribute of forested ecosystems, influencing habitat suitability, water quality and runoff, microclimate, and wildfire behavior. The Fire-Science Team at the USGS EROS Center is fusing spaceborne lidar and passive optical data to create spatially complete maps of vegetation structure at 30-meter resolution.

Barrier islands are dynamic environments that can evolve with currents, waves, and tides. These systems help with storm surge reduction and wave attenuation but accelerated sea-level rise and more frequent and intense storms are expected to drastically change these islands in the future.

Tens of millions of trees reportedly died in California during the 2012–2016 drought, resulting in marked increases in heavy fuel loads on the landscape. In conjunction with warming temperatures, drier conditions, and over a century of fire suppression, the accumulation of fuel can result in catastrophic fires that are beyond the predictive capacity of traditional fire behavior models.

The Department of Interior’s Office of Wildland Fire (OWF), in partnership with the USGS, is conducting evaluations to determine best practices and methodology for data collection of post-fire eve

The 2012 Pole Creek Fire in the Deschutes National Forest in Oregon continues to provide an exceptional opportunity to study wildland fire effects with remote sensing data. This project builds upon wildland fire remote sensing research by addressing novel questions through the analysis of pre-fire, post-fire, and a new 8+ year post-fire forest recovery lidar acquisition.

Shrublands in southern California have seen sweeping changes in vegetation composition and structure due to fire and drought. Invasion of nonnative grasses after repeated fire or drought events can inhibit shrub recovery and lead to vegetation type conversion to nonnative grassland.

In recent decades, forests worldwide have experienced dramatic and often unexpected drought-related tree mortality events. California recently suffered its most extreme drought on record, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of trees.

Although extensive work has been devoted to understanding the role of fire in maintaining ecosystem functions in upland systems, little research has focused on understanding the impact of fire on coastal wetlands or the response of birds to fire in high marsh wetlands.