Multispectral (approx. 4-12 bands)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Fire perimeter databases provide critical geospatial information that land managers use for a variety of purposes, including documenting fire occurrence, determining historical reference conditions and fire regimes, planning fuels treatments and fire management operations, and assessing potential vulnerability of infrastructure and resources.

Mercury is a neurotoxin and environmental pollutant that endangers the health of humans and wildlife. When mercury flows into aquatic environments like San Francisco Bay (SFB), it can be converted by microorganisms to methylmercury (MeHg), which is the most poisonous of mercury compounds. MeHg bioaccumulates in aquatic food webs and can cause a wide range of impairments in fish, birds, and humans.

Fusing remote sensing products from different satellite sensors allows the development of enhanced maps of the distribution of coastal wetland plants and more accurate models of coastal elevations. This critical information about vulnerability to sea-level rise and hurricane flooding is being used by Department of Interior partners and State and local agencies to improve management in a changing climate.

Bird Conservation Regions (BCRs) are ecologically distinct areas with similar bird populations, ecological characteristics, and natural resource management concerns. Understanding vegetation distributions and dynamics may guide land management and conservation decisions, but current information available in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts Bird Conservation Region (BCR 33) are insufficient due to the area’s low vegetative cover and complex vegetation communities, and the disconti

Shrublands in southern California have seen sweeping changes in vegetation composition and structure due to fire and drought. Invasion of non-native grasses after repeated fire or drought events can inhibit shrub recovery and lead to vegetation type conversion to nonnative grassland. In California’s San Diego County, chaparral and coastal sage scrub vegetation communities are at risk, with some areas experiencing large declines in shrub cover.

The substantial distributional expansion and infill of pinyon (Pinus monophylla) and juniper (Juniperus sp.) trees (hereafter, "conifer") into sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems since the late 1800s threatens the ecological function and economic viability of these ecosystems and represents a major contemporary challenge facing land and wildlife managers. The ecological consequences of the expansion are influenced by the proportion of coniferous cover within the ecosystem.