Publications

The state of California, United States of America produces many crop products that are both utilized domestically and exported throughout the world. With nearly 39,000 km2 of croplands, monitoring unintentional and intentional surface water inundation is important for water resource management and flood hazard readiness. We examine inundation dynamics in California croplands from 2003 to...

We present a strategy for earthquake early warning (EEW) alerting that focuses on providing users with a target level of performance for their shaking level of interest (for example, ensuring that users receive warnings for at least 95 per cent of the occurrences of that shaking level). We explore the factors that can affect the accuracy of EEW shaking forecasts including site conditions...

Climate change is altering wildfire behavior and vegetation regimes in California’s forested ecosystems. Present day fires are seeing an increase in high burn severity area and high severity patch size. The ability to predict future burn severity patterns would support better policy and land management decisions. Here we demonstrate a methodology to first, statistically estimate...

ContextWildlife avoid human disturbances, including roads and development. Avoidance and displacement of wildlife into less suitable habitat due to human development can affect their energy expenditures and fitness. The heart rate and oxygen uptake of large mammals varies with both natural aspects of their habitat (terrain, climate, predators, etc.) and anthropogenic influence (noise...

Thoroughly investigating the characteristics of new generation hyperspectral and high spatial resolution spaceborne sensors will advance the study of agricultural crops. Therefore, we compared the performances of hyperspectral Deutsches Zentrum fur Luftund Raumfahrt- (DLR) Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS) and high spatial resolution PlanetScope in classifying eight crop types...

In this article we describe the natural hydrogeomorphological and biogeochemical cycles of dryland fluvial ecosystems that make them unique, yet vulnerable to land use activities and climate change. We introduce Natural Infrastructure in Dryland Streams (NIDS), which are structures naturally or anthropogenically created from earth, wood, debris, or rock that can restore implicit function...

Cropland products are of great importance in water and food security assessments, especially in South Asia, which is home to nearly 2 billion people and 230 million hectares of net cropland area. In South Asia, croplands account for about 90% of all human water use. Cropland extent, cropping intensity, crop watering methods, and crop types are important factors that have a bearing on the...

Satellite imagery is commonly used to map surface water extents over time, but many approaches yield discontinuous records resulting from cloud obstruction or image archive gaps. We applied the Dynamic Surface Water Extent (DSWE) model to downscaled (250-m) daily Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data in Google Earth Engine to generate monthly surface water maps for...

Sea-level rise (SLR) and obstructions to sediment delivery pose challenges to the persistence of estuarine habitats and the ecosystem services they provide. Restoration actions and sediment management strategies may help mitigate such challenges by encouraging the vertical accretion of sediment in and horizontal migration of tidal forests and marshes. We used a process-based soil...

Methods are being developed to capitalize on citizen science data for research and monitoring, but these data are rarely used within established decision-making frameworks of wildlife agencies. Citizen science data are often collected at higher resolution and extent than targeted monitoring programs, and may provide complementary information. Here, we demonstrate that carefully filtered...

This paper describes how impacts to infrastructure networks within the San Francisco Bay Area may exacerbate the effects of building damage and how policies addressing these networks can improve resilience before and after the earthquake. The analysis uses existing modeling techniques that underlie the Association of Bay Area Government’s (ABAG) 2015 regional economic forecast of the San...

IntroductionThe global food-security-support-analysis data at 30-meter resolution (GFSAD30) cropland-extent product is a project to provide high-resolution global cropland-extent data relating to water use. It is the first global-land-cover map focusing exclusively on agriculture with a 30-meter spatial resolution. The overarching goal of the GFSAD30 project is to produce consistent and...