Keyword: remote sensing

An Electronically Steerable Flash Lidar (ESFL)

Current space-based lidar systems for Earth remote sensing have a number of inherent limitations that impact their use for broader science applications. These include no cross-track coverage, fixed spatial sampling that forces pointing control to be performed by the spacecraft, cloud loss over many types of scenes, and, in general, lifetimes set in part by the number of laser shots fired.

Distant neighbors: Recent wildfire patterns of the Madrean Sky Islands of southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico

Background: Information about contemporary fire regimes across the Sky Island mountain ranges of the Madrean Archipelago Ecoregion in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico can provide insight into how historical fire management and land use have influenced fire regimes, and can be used to guide fuels management, ecological restoration, and habitat conservation.

Increasing trends in high-severity fire in the southwestern USA from 1984 to 2015

In the last three decades, over 4.1 million hectares have burned in Arizona and New Mexico and the largest fires in documented history have occurred in the past two decades. Changes in burn severity over time, however, have not been well documented in forest and woodland ecosystems in the southwestern US.

Using forest inventory data with Landsat 8 imagery to map longleaf pine forest characteristics in Georgia, USA

This study improved on previous efforts to map longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) over large areas in the southeastern United States of America by developing new methods that integrate forest inventory data, aerial photography and Landsat 8 imagery to model forest characteristics.

Integrating ecosystem sampling, gradient modeling, remote sensing, and ecosystem simulation to create spatially explicit landscape inventories

Presented is a prototype of the Landscape Ecosystem Inventory System (LEIS), a system for creating maps of important landscape characteristics for natural resource planning. This system uses gradient-based field inventories coupled with gradient modeling remote sensing, ecosystem simulation, and statistical analyses to derive spatial data layers required for ecosystem management.

When tree rings go global: Challenges and opportunities for retro- and prospective insight

The demand for large-scale and long-term information on tree growth is increasing rapidly as environmental change research strives to quantify and forecast the impacts of continued warming on forest ecosystems. This demand, combined with the now quasi-global availability of tree-ring observations, has inspired researchers to compile large tree-ring networks to address continental or even global-scale research questions.

Applications of the United States Forest Inventory and Analysis dataset: A review and future directions

The United States Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program has been monitoring national forest resources in the United States for over 80 years; presented here is a synthesis of research applications for FIA data. A review of over 180 publications that directly utilize FIA data is broken down into broad categories of application and further organized by methodologies and niche research areas.

Northwest Forest Plan—the first 10 years (1994-2003): status and trend of late-successional and old-growth forest.

We monitored the status and trend of late-successional and old-growth forest (older forest) on 24 million ac of land managed by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service in the Northwest Forest Plan (the Plan) area between 1994 and 2003. We developed baseline maps from satellite imagery of older forest conditions at the start of the Plan.

Modeling and mapping basal area of Pinus taeda L. plantation using airborne LiDAR data

Basal area (BA) is a good predictor of timber stand volume and forest growth. This study developed predictive models using field and airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data for estimation of basal area in Pinus taeda plantation in south Brazil. In the field, BA was collected from conventional forest inventory plots.