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Publications

Publications, scientific literature, and information products from the Land Change Science Program.

Filter Total Items: 564

Atmospheric dust deposition varies by season and elevation in the Colorado Front Range, USA

As atmospheric dust deposition continues to increase across the southwestern United States, it has the potential to alter ecosystem productivity and structure by delivering nutrients, base cations, and pollutants to remote mountain sites. Due to the sparse distribution of dust monitoring sites, open questions remain about the spatial and temporal variability of dust fluxes and composition across m
Authors
Ruth C. Heindel, Annie L. Putman, Sheila F. Murphy, Deborah A. Repert, Eve-Lyn S. Hinckley

Evaluating indicators of marsh vulnerability to sea level rise along a historical marsh loss gradient

Sea level rise (SLR) is threatening coastal marshes, leading to large‐scale marsh loss in several micro‐tidal systems. Early recognition of marsh vulnerability to SLR is critical in these systems to aid managers to take appropriate restoration or mitigation measures. However, it is not clear if current marsh vulnerability indicators correctly assess long‐term stability of the marsh system. In this
Authors
Lennert Schepers, Matthew Kirwan, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Stijn Temmerman

Explaining mass balance and retreat dichotomies at Taku and Lemon Creek Glaciers, Alaska

We reanalyzed mass balance records at Taku and Lemon Creek Glaciers to better understand the relative roles of hypsometry, local climate and dynamics as mass balance drivers. Over the 1946–2018 period, the cumulative mass balances diverged. Tidewater Taku Glacier advanced and gained mass at an average rate of +0.25±0.28 m w.e. a–1, contrasting with retreat and mass loss of –0.60±0.15 m w.e. a-1 at
Authors
Christopher J. McNeil, Shad O'Neel, Michael Loso, Mauri Pelto, Louis C. Sass, Emily Baker, Seth Campbell

Carbon stock losses and recovery observed for a mangrove ecosystem following a major hurricane in Southwest Florida

Studies integrating mangrove in-situ observations and remote sensing analysis for specific sites often lack precise estimates of carbon stocks over time frames that include disturbance events. This study quantifies change in mangrove area from 1985 to 2018 with Landsat time series analysis, estimates above and belowground stored carbon using field data, and evaluates aboveground carbon stock chang
Authors
Elitsa I. Peneva-Reed, Ken Krauss, Eric L. Bullock, Zhiliang Zhu, Victoria Woltz, Judith Z. Drexler, Jeremy R. Conrad, Stephen V. Stehman

Implementation of a surface water extent model in Cambodia using cloud-based remote sensing

Mapping surface water over time provides the spatially explicit information essential for hydroclimatic research focused on droughts and flooding. Hazard risk assessments and water management planning also rely on accurate, long-term measurements describing hydrologic fluctuations. Stream gages are a common measurement tool used to better understand flow and inundation dynamics, but gage networks
Authors
Christopher E. Soulard, Jessica J. Walker, Roy E. Petrakis

Quantifying interregional flows of multiple ecosystem services – A case study for Germany

Despite a growing number of national-scale ecosystem service (ES) assessments, few studies consider the impacts of ES use and consumption beyond national or regional boundaries. Interregional ES flows – ecosystem services “imported” from and “exported” to other countries – are rarely analyzed and their importance for global sustainability is little known. Here, we provide a first multi-ES quantifi
Authors
Janina Kleeman, Matthias Schröter, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Christian Kuhlicke, Thomas Kastner, Dor Fridman, Catharina J. E. Schulp, Sarah Wolff, Javier Martinez-Lopez, Thomas Koellner, Sebastian Arnhold, Berta Martin-Lopez, Alexandra Marques, Laura Lopez-Hoffman, Jianguo Liu, Meidad Kissinger, Carlos Guerra, Aletta Bonn

Dust deposited on snow cover in the San Juan Mountains, Colorado, 2011-2016: Compositional variability bearing on snow-melt effects

Light-absorbing particles in atmospheric dust deposited on snow cover (dust-on-snow, DOS) diminish albedo and accelerate the timing and rate of snow melt. Identification of these particles and their effects are relevant to snow-radiation modeling and thus water-resource management. Laboratory-measured reflectance of DOS samples from the San Juan Mountains (USA) were compared with DOS mass loading,
Authors
Richard L. Reynolds, Harland L. Goldstein, Bruce M. Moskowitz, Raymond F. Kokaly, Seth M. Munson, Peat Solheid, George N. Breit, Corey R. Lawrence, Jeff Derry

The influence of pre-fire growth patterns on post-fire tree mortality for common conifers in western U.S. parks

Fire severity in forests is often defined in terms of post-fire tree mortality, yet the influences on tree mortality following fire are not fully understood. For trees that are not killed immediately by severe fire injury, pre-fire growth may partially predict post-fire mortality probabilities for conifers of the western U.S. Here, we consider the influence of multiple growth patterns on post-fire
Authors
Phillip van Mantgem, Donald A. Falk, Emma C. Williams, Adrian J. Das, Nathan L. Stephenson

Increasing rates of carbon burial in southwest Florida coastal wetlands

Rates of organic carbon (OC) burial in some coastal wetlands appear to be greater in recent years than they were in the past. Possible explanations include ongoing mineralization of older OC or the influence of an unaccounted‐for artefact of the methods used to measure burial rates. Alternatively, the trend may represent real acceleration in OC burial. We quantified OC burial rates of mangrove and
Authors
Joshua L. Breithaupt, Joseph M. Smoak, Thomas S. Bianchi, Derrick Vaughn, Christian Sanders, Kara Radabaugh, Michael J. Osland, Laura C. Feher, James C. Lynch, Donald R. Cahoon, Gordon H. Anderson, Kevin R. T. Whelan, Brad E. Rosenheim, Ryan P. Moyer, Lisa Chambers

Carbon release through abrupt permafrost thaw

The permafrost zone is expected to be a substantial carbon source to the atmosphere, yet large-scale models currently only simulate gradual changes in seasonally thawed soil. Abrupt thaw will probably occur in
Authors
Merritt R. Turetsky, Benjamin W. Abbott, Miriam C. Jones, Katey Walter Anthony, David Olefeldt, Edward A. Schuur, Guido Grosse, Peter Kuhry, Gustaf Hugelius, Charles Koven, David M. Lawrence, Carolyn Gibson, A. Britta K. Sannel, A.D. McGuire

Persistence and plasticity in conifer water-use strategies

The selective use of seasonal precipitation by vegetation is critical to understanding the residence time and flow path of water in watersheds, yet there are limited datasets to test how climate alters these dynamics. Here, we use measurements of the seasonal cycle of tree ring 18O for two widespread conifer species in the Rocky Mountains of North America to provide a multi-decadal depiction of th
Authors
Max Berkelhammer, Chris Still, Francois Ritter, Matthew Winnik, Lesleigh Anderson, Rosemary Carroll, Mariah Carbone, Kenneth Williams

Progress in natural capital accounting for ecosystems

Reversing the ongoing degradation of the planet's ecosystems requires timely and detailed monitoring of ecosystem change and uses. Yet, the System of National Accounts (SNA), first developed in response to the economic crisis of the 1930s and used by statistical offices worldwide to record economic activity (for example, production, consumption, and asset accumulation), does not make explicit eith
Authors
Lars Hein, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Carl Obst, Bram Edens, Sjoerd Schenau, Gem Castillo, Francois Soulard, Claire Brown, Amanda Driver, Michael Bordt, Anton Steurer, Rocky Harris, Alejandro Capparros
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