Publications

Sagebrush-dominant ecosystems in the western United States are highly vulnerable to climatic variability. To understand how these ecosystems will respond under potential future conditions, we correlated changes in National Land Cover Dataset “Back-in-Time” fractional cover maps from 1985-2018 with Daymet climate data in three federally managed preserves in the sagebrush steppe ecosystem: Beaty But

The history of Earth observation from space is well reflected through the Landsat program. With data collection beginning with Landsat-1 in 1972, the program has evolved technical capabilities while maintaining continuity of land observations. In so doing, Landsat has provided a critical reference for assessing long-term changes to Earth's land environment due to both natural and human forcing. Po

Vegetation buffers local diurnal land surface temperatures, however, this effect has found limited applications for remote vegetation characterization. In this work, we parameterize diurnal temperature variations as the thermal decay rate derived by using satellite daytime and nighttime land surface temperatures and modeled using Newton’s law of cooling. The relationship between the thermal decay

The causes of land change from 2001 through 2011 for the Interior Highlands region of the south-central United States were assessed using satellite imagery, historical land-use and land-cover data, and digital orthophotos. The study was designed to develop improved regional land-use and land-cover change information, including identification of the proximate causes of change. The four leading caus

Accurate and complete geospatial fire occurrence records are important in determining postfire effects, emissions, hazards, and fuel loading inventories. Currently, the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project maps the fire perimeter and burn severity of all large fires on public lands. Although the MTBS project maps a large proportion of the fire acreage, it maps a smaller proportion of

The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) program has been providing the fire science community with large fire perimeter and burn severity data for the past 14 years. As of October 2019, 22 969 fires have been mapped by the MTBS program and are available on the MTBS website (https://www.mtbs.gov). These data have been widely used by researchers to examine a variety of fire and climate science

The Leica Geosystems CountryMapper hybrid system has the potential to collect data that satisfy the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Geospatial Program (NGP) and 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) requirements in a single collection. This research will help 3DEP determine if this sensor has the potential to me

To better understand the Earth system, it is important to investigate the interactions between precipitation, land use/land cover (LULC), and the land surface, especially vegetation. An improved understanding of these land-atmosphere interactions can aid understanding of the climate system and modeling of time series satellite data. Here, we investigate the effect of precipitation and LULC on the

Assessing fire behavior in shrubland/grassland ecosystems of the western United States has proven especially problematic, in part due to the complex nature of the vegetation and its relationships with prior fire history events. Our goals in this study were (1) to determine if we can effectively leverage the high temporal resolution capabilities of current remote sensing systems such as the Moderat

Federal mandates and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS, also known as the Bureau) Fundamental Science Practices (FSP) policies require that publicly funded scientific data, publications, and derivative works be openly accessible to researchers and the public. Open access helps to leverage the public investment by making the acquired data and published information products—collectively referred to as “d

Drought risk management involves three pillars: drought early warning, drought vulnerability and risk assessment, and drought preparedness, mitigation, and response. This book collects in one place a description of all the key components of the first pillar, and describes strategies for fitting these pieces together. The best modern drought early warning systems incorporate and integrate a broad a

West Africa represents a wide gradient of climates, extending from tropical conditions along the Guinea Coast to the dry deserts of the south Sahara, and it has some of the lowest income, most vulnerable populations on the planet, which increases catastrophic impacts of low and high frequency climate variability. This paper investigates low and high frequency climate variability in West African mo