Hydrologic Effects of Mountain Pine Beetle Mortality in the Black Hills of South Dakota
The broad-scale mortality of Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) from the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) has deforested sizable proportions of many watersheds in the Black Hills of western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming. The implications to streamflow characteristics, water quality, and watershed ecology of this scale of vegetative type change are not well-defined for the Black Hills area. Remote sensing, including aerial photography and Landsat imagery, is being used to track the forest cover change.