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Book Chapters

Browse more than 5,500 book chapters authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.

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Fifty-years of advances in hyperspectral remote sensing of agriculture and vegetation: Summary, insights, and highlights of volume III

The goal of this summary chapter is twofold. The first is to provide the reader an overview of the content of the preceding chapters. This they can read at the very beginning, before moving on to individual chapters in detail. Alternatively, they may read it at the very end to refresh their memory and to summarize the contents of the Volume. Second, this summary provides the editors’ perspective,
Authors
Prasad S. Thenkabail, John G. Lyon, Alfredo Huete

Characteristics of tropical tree species in hyperspectral and multispectral data

Remote sensing has been hailed as a promising technology to provide spatially explicit information on tree species distribution. Such information is of high value for ecologists and forest managers, particularly in tropical environments in which it is acquired by costly field inventories performed at the plot level (∼1 ha). Over the last decade, hyperspectral sensors, usually on board airborne pla
Authors
Matheus Pinheiro Ferreira, Cibele Hummel do Amaral, Gaia Vaglio Laurin, Raymond F. Kokaly, Carlos Roberto de Souza Filho, Yosio Edemir Shimabukuro

Fractured rock environments

No abstract available.
Authors
Paul A. Hsieh

Evaluating riparian vegetation change in canyon-bound reaches of the Colorado River using spatially extensive matched photo sets

Much of what we know about the functional ecology of aquatic and riparian ecosystems comes from work on regulated rivers (Johnson et al. 2012). What little we know about unregulated conditions on many of our larger rivers is often inferred from recollections of individuals, personal diaries, notes, maps, and collections from early scientific surveys (Webb et al. 2007) and from repeat photography (
Authors
Michael L. Scott, Robert H. Webb, R. Roy Johnson, Raymond M. Turner, Jonathan M. Friedman, Helen C. Fairley

Early life history

No abstract available.
Authors
Timothy B. Grabowski, Jonathan Grabowski

The National Elevation Dataset

The National Elevation Dataset (NED) is a primary elevation data product that has been produced and distributed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Since its inception, the USGS has compiled and published topographic information in many forms, and the NED is a significant development in this long line of products that describe the land surface. The NED provides seamless raster elevation data of
Authors
Dean B. Gesch, Gayla A. Evans, Michael J. Oimoen, Samantha Arundel

Tidal Wetlands and Estuaries

1. The top 1 m of tidal wetland soils and estuarine sediments of North America contains 1,886 ± 1046 teragrams of carbon (Tg C). [High confidence, Very likely] 2. Soil carbon accumulation rate (i.e., sediment burial) in North American tidal wetlands is currently 9 ± 5 Tg C per year and estuarine carbon burial is 5 ± 3 Tg C per year. [High confidence, Likely] 3. The lateral flux of carbon from tida
Authors
Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Wei Jun Cai, Simone Alin, Andreas Andersson, Joseph Crosswell, Kenneth Dunton, Jose Martin Hernandez-Ayon, Maria Herrmann, Audra L. Hinson, Charles Hopkinson, Jennifer Howard, Xinping Hu, Sara H. Knox, Kevin Kroeger, David Lagomasino, Patrick Megonigal, Raymond Najjar, May-Linn Paulsen, Dorothy Peteet, Emily Pidgeon, Karina Schafer, Elizabeth Watson, Zhaohui Aleck Wang, Maria Tzortziou

Chesapeake Bay impact structure—Development of "brim" sedimentation in a multilayered marine target

The late Eocene Chesapeake Bay impact structure was formed in a multilayered target of seawater underlain sequentially by a sediment layer and a rock layer in a continental-shelf environment. Impact effects in the “brim” (annular trough) surrounding and adjacent to the transient crater, between the transient crater rim and the outer margin, primarily were limited to the target-sediment layer. Anal
Authors
Henning Dypvik, Gregory Gohn, Lucy Edwards, J. Wright Horton,, David Powars, Ronald Litwin

Status of tidal marsh mapping for blue carbon inventories

Remote-sensing-based maps of tidal marshes, both of their extents and carbon stocks, will play a key role in conducting greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories.The U.N. Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre has produced a new Global Distribution of Salt Marsh dataset that estimates global salt marsh area at 5.5 Mha.A Tier 1–2 GHG Inventory of U.S. Coastal Wetlands has been developed
Authors
Kristin B. Byrd, Chris Mcowen, Lauren Weatherdon, James Holmquist, Stephen Crooks

Defining blue carbon: The emergence of a climate context for coastal carbon dynamics

Blue Carbon Ecosystems (BCEs) are defined as coastal wetland ecosystems with manageable and atmospherically significant carbon stocks and fluxes.Policy and management opportunities have promoted the emergence of blue carbon as a concept and spurred scientific interest to reduce uncertainties in coastal carbon budgets.The four major BCEs are generally classified by their plant communities: tidal ma
Authors
Stephen Crooks, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Tiffany Troxler