Publications

At its widest point, a mere 80 miles separate the eastern and western borders of New Hampshire. Its northern and southern borders are just 175 miles apart. Even so, few States can boast as much rugged natural beauty per mile as the Nation’s fifth smallest.Nestled within New Hampshire are 93 State parks teeming with moose, Ursus americanus (Pallas, 1780; black bears), coyotes, beavers, river otters

Kansas seems synonymous with agriculture, and rightly so—87 percent of Kansas land is devoted to it. As a key contributor to the State’s economy, agriculture makes Kansas one of the top producers of wheat, grain sorghum, and cattle in the country, but the State at the geographic center of the conterminous United States contains much more than fields and pastures.Deciduous woodlands sprawl througho

The rolling plains of Nebraska occupy a storied place in the American psyche. For those living outside the Midwest, the Cornhusker State may be seen as a symbol of the Nation’s heartland, cropped border to border, with country churches and barely standing barns to be found around every turn of its gravel roads.Although the pioneer history and agricultural heritage of the 37th State lend credence t

Wisconsin could be called a State of icons, and many of the icons can trace their roots to the abundant resources within its four borders. Big beer companies in Milwaukee that began in the 1800s made their beer from water from nearby lakes and rivers, kept it cool with ice from those same sources, and stored it in containers made of harvested wood from State forests. Dairy and cheese factories rel

New Jersey ranks among the smallest of States but packs a lot within its borders. Of course, that includes the more than 9 million people who make it the most densely populated State, but it also includes diverse landscapes. Ranging from Atlantic Ocean barrier islands and beaches to the Appalachian Mountains, and Pine Barrens forests to swampland, the “Garden State” retains remnants of an agricult

The State of North Dakota once did not figure prominently in the Nation’s economy. The sparsely populated State supported food production, and hunters and anglers were drawn to its lakes, rivers, and wide-open spaces, but its economy was overshadowed by that of other States. However, the State and its prairie expanses recently rocketed from an economic afterthought to a national energy leader with

Natural resources have always been a strength for Indiana. Once largely covered by forest, the State now includes a mix of forest, farmland, wetlands, and small lakes. In fact, farms and forested areas make up more than 80 percent of the land. The Ohio River forms the southern border, and the south shore of Lake Michigan contrasts with urban development in the northwestern corner. Indiana Dunes Na

From the Hindu Kush mountains to the Registan Desert, Afghanistan is a diverse landscape where droughts, floods, conflict, and economic market accessibility pose challenges for agricultural livelihoods and food security. The ability to remotely monitor environmental conditions is critical to support decision making for humanitarian assistance. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) La

Connecticut, the third-smallest State by land area, is the fourth most densely populated in the United States. Connecticut’s tightly packed cities serve as international hubs for the finance and insurance industries. These same urban enclaves host highly regarded institutions of higher learning, such as Yale, the University of Connecticut, and Quinnipiac and Wesleyan Universities.Yet Connecticut h

Many may recall “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” made famous by John Denver, leads with the lyric “almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River.” The descriptors are apt. Nicknamed the “Mountain State,” West Virginia inspires thoughts of coal mining or logging in the Appalachian Mountains and valleys, or the leaping trout in the winding waters of New River Gorge National Park

Land cover maps are essential for characterizing the biophysical properties of the Earth’s land areas. Because land cover information synthesizes a rich array of information related to both the ecological condition of land areas and their exploitation by humans, they are widely used for basic and applied research that requires information related to land surface properties (e.g., terrestrial carbo

Understanding historical crop water use (CWU) dynamics is important to improve land and water management. In this study, well-validated (coefficient of determination = 0.91, percent bias = 4%, and percent root mean square error = 11.8%) Landsat-based actual evapotranspiration (ETa) time-series estimations were used to (1) assess summer season CWU (CWU-Su) dynamics, (2) investigate CWU-Su trends ov