Images

USGS Scientists published a StoryMap showing projected changes in land use, flooded area, and wildlife habitat in California’s Central Valley for five scenarios of future climate and water management.

A very high, high, medium, low, and very low liquefaction susceptibility map of the San Francisco Bay area. The graphic was made using data from Witter et. al, 2006.

A mallard bathes in the waters of Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. Source: Mike Peters, US Fish and Wildlife Service. Public Domain.

Picture of the Rosemont hills showing grasses and shrubs with clouds in the background.

Photograph of Nathan Wood for his staff profile. He works for the Western Geographic Science Center.

Rock gabion installed in arroyo in La Paz, Baja California Sur. (Laura Norman, USGS)

Example map showing UAS image (A) and resulting image classification (B). 

A conceptual model of ecosystem services for the wetland habitats of Nisqually River Delta. Exogenous factors influence the quality and quantity of wetland habitat. This, in turn, controls the many functions that occur within wetlands. Ecosystem services, or benefits to people, are derived from the ability of wetlands to perform critical ecological functions.

Aerial map of modeling area in the Nisqually River Delta. Managed freshwater marsh at the southern end of the refuge is excluded. Inset: Black point on terrain map shows the location of Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge within Washington State (grey outline).

Density of oil and gas well pads per km² in the Colorado Plateau ecoregion (including parts of Utah, Colorado and New Mexico) as counted in 2016. Oil/gas wells are particularly concentrated in this region with ~100,000 abandoned and current wells spanning 60 years of activity. These numbers are dramatically increasing with time.

An active oil and gas well pad and an abandoned pad being reclaimed (top left inset).

The tidal forests of the Nisqually River Delta become inundated to just below the trunk during the highest tides of the year.

Engergy pads in an arid enverionment

Sampling approach for remote measurements of invasives around wind turbines. 

Invasives index values before and after turbine construction compared to surrounding control areas (top). Green indicates turbines with higher index values in the period after construction, and yellow indicates no change or lower invasive index values after construction.

Information from satellite imagery helped to differentiate areas vulnerable to soil erosion from off-highway vehicle use. For this study we developed a “P-factor” by scaling ground measurements of soil compaction to vehicle disturbances mapped from aerial imagery.

Graph showing A) Landsat time series of the Soil-Adjusted Total Vegetation Index (SATVI) from 1984-2011.

Location map of the Colorado Plateau ecoregion; ecoregion detail (A) with individual well sites identified by a black dot; Google Earth Pro aerial photography showing the footprint of oil and gas development at the landscape scale as small light colored patches (B); Google Earth Pro close-up of well pads and roads (C).

Field crew measuring cover of Lehmann Lovegrass (Eragrostis lehmanniana) and Boer Lovegrass (E. curvula var. conferta = E. chloromelas) in a desert grassland of southern Arizona. 

Field crew collecting validation information for remote sensing products.

The Sonoran Desert of the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona.