The project will develop maps of 30+ years of landscape dynamics for a suite of national parks in the western U.S. Mapping vegetation dynamics will be done with the Landtrendr algorithm, which captures change in vegetative cover through analysis of temporal trajectories of spectral data from satellites, in this case from the Landsat Thematic Mapper family of sensors.

Conducting this research at national parks also provides an excellent means of communicating the importance of space-based research to the public. Through a series of trainings and workshops, the PI will help NPS staff build the expertise needed to integrate the products of this research into existing programs and to build new programs and materials from the research.

This project is designed to characterize spatial and temporal forest disturbance patterns that could potentially affect the habtitat suitability for the Oregon Coast Coho Salmon. Disturbance information will be mapped using trajectory-based techniques derived from annual Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data, potentially merged with existing maps of seral stage as appropriate. Analytical techniques will focus on understanding and characterizing spatial patterns according to watershed, basin, ownership, and management regime, and temporal patterns related to changes in policy, economic drivers, and climate.

Developing protocols for remote-sensing based inventorying & monitoring (I&M) of vegetation patterns across several I&M networks of the National Park Service

A primary goal of the National Park Service’s Inventory and Monitoring program (NPS I&M) is to “monitor park ecosystems to better understand their dynamic nature and condition and to provide reference points for comparisons with other, altered environments.”  In conjunction with several networks within the NPS I&M, we are developing protocols for long-term, remote-sensing based monitoring of landscape patterns and vegetation changes.

Sierra Nevada Network (SIEN)

Southwest Alaska Network (SWAN)

Northern and Southern Colorado Plateau Networks (NCPN & SCPN)

North Coast and Cascades Network (NCCN)

The Northern Eurasia Land Dynamics Analysis (NELDA) project seeks to harness NASA remote sensing technology and local knowledge of land-cover conditions in order to validate and improve land cover/land-cover change products for Northern Eurasia.  The NELDA project will establish a network of test sites for analyzing land cover, land-cover change, and disturbance captured with time series of Landsat-resolution imagery.  The test sites will provide data for validation of existing coarse-resolution land-cover products and samples of important vegetation change and disturbance processes. We will use these samples to develop and test methods for continental mapping of vegetation disturbance.  Finally, we will produce a new, updated land cover map for Northern Eurasia based on MODIS data for circa 2005 at 500-m spatial resolution.

The proposed research integrates riparian zone mapping with dynamic models to project the response of riparian zones, stream channels and salmon habitat to natural disturbance and land-use activities. The overall objective of this work is to produce a decision support tool for habitat restoration planning that incorporates advanced remote-sensing technology and information about disturbance-recovery processes with existing knowledge of critical habitat needs for salmonids. The proposal has two components: 1) remote sensing and riparian mapping, 2) riparian and aquatic modeling. We will apply the remote sensing and mapping methods to two intensively monitored watersheds – Nehalem and Middle Fork John Day Rivers – and apply modeling to them to examine current conditions relative to the historic range of variability, examine potential of passive restoration to meet recovery goals, and examine the potential of active restoration to accelerate recovery.

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) is the next-generation Landsat satellite, expected to be launched during the summer of 2011. LARSE Director Warren Cohen serves as a member of the Landsat Science Team, which provides advice and recommendations to the USGS and other partners on topics that will affect the overall success of the LDCM mission. In that capacity, he draws upon various past and present projects that take advantage of the Landsat archive, the most temporally extensive, spatially-explicit data record for understanding vegetation change at a global scale. The two most important of those projects include the North American Forest Dynamics Study (NAFD) and the various National Park Service Inventory & Monitoring projects, both of which focus on the vegetation monitoring capabilities of Landsat data when used in combination with inventory and related field and airphoto data.

Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System

LEDAPS is a NASA-funded project to map North American forest disturbance since 1975 from the Landsat satellite record. LEDAPS will also produce comprehensive maps of surface reflectance for 1975, 1990, and 2000 for the United States and Canada. LEDAPS is part of NASA's contribution to the North American Carbon Program (NACP), a component of the USGCRP Carbon Cycle Science Program.

Satellite Laser Altimetry of Forests

This research is exploring how lidar waveforms from the GLAS sensor can be used to estimate forest height and aboveground biomass over three pilot study areas: the Pacific Northwest, southeast of the U.S. and the northwestern Amazon Basin. With no other global lidar data collection scheduled for the near future, GLAS data represent an importnant source of information for global forest canopy height and aboveground biomass.

Linking In Situ Measurements, Remote Sensing, and Models to Validate MODIS Products Related to the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle

The overall goal of BigFoot was to provide validation of MODLand (MODIS Land Science Team) science products, including land cover, leaf area index (LAI), fraction absorbed photosynthetic active radiation (fAPAR) , and net primary production (NPP). To do so, we used ground measurements, remote sensing data, and ecosystem process models at sites representing different biomes. BigFoot sites measured 5 x 5 km in size and surrounded the relatively small footprint (1 km2) of CO2 flux towers. At each site we made multi-year in situ measurements of ecosystem structure and functional characteristics related to the terrestrial carbon cycle. Our sampling design allowed us to explicitly examine scales of fine-grained spatial pattern in these properties, and provided for a field-based ecological characterization of the flux tower footprint. Multi-year measurements ensured that inter-annual validity of MODLand products were assessed.

Northwest Forest Plan Disturbance Mapping Project

This project's goal was the detection and mapping of stand replacement disturbances occurring in the Northwest Forest Plan Area between 1984 and 2002. Both clear-cuts and major fire events produce significant changes in forest cover that are readily detected in sequential Landsat images. Building on earlier LARSE research (Cohen et al., 1998; Oetter et al., 2000; Cohen et al., 2002), we employed a relatively simple, cost-effective change-detection method that is roughly 90% accurate (Cohen et al., 2002). The immediate use of this map was to monitor the effectiveness of the Late-Successional and Old-Growth Module of the Northwest Forest Plan. Other potential uses may include habitat modeling and regional evaluation of changing forest management practices.

Modeling Carbon Dynamics and Their Economic Implications in Two Forested Regions: Pacific Northwestern USA and Northwestern Russia

This research project was drafted to compare two significant forest regions, the United States Pacific Northwest and the St. Petersburg region of Russia, with the overall objective of determining the relative importance of land-use versus biogeoclimatic factors in controlling spatial and temporal patterns of carbon dynamics. Our laboratory's involvement in the effort was to provide the remote sensing components of the land cover and disturbance maps that drive the carbon flux modeling process.

Net ecosystem productivity (NEP) is a critical characteristic of terrestrial ecosystem response to environment. Processes controlling NEP operate on a variety of temporal and spatial scales and are influenced by physiology, allocation, forest development, climate and disturbance. We are simulating NPP and NEP in Oregon and Washington using a combination of remote sensing, site data, and process models. Model outputs are being tested using detailed ecosystem studies at intensive sites, more basic ecological measurements at other existing intensive sites, and survey data from Forest Health Monitoring (FHM), Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plots, and Current Vegetation Survey (CVS) plots. In spatially explicit applications, we are predicting and evaluating forest productivity for an east-west longitudinal swath along a steep climatic gradient through central Oregon from the coast to the semi-arid east side of the Cascade Mountains, and a north-south latitudinal swath from the south.

Interagency Vegetation Mapping Project (IVMP)

The Interagency Vegetation Mapping Project (IVMP) is a joint effort by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to map forest structure and composition variables (quadratic mean diameter, percent canopy cover, and percent cover of broadleaves and conifers) in western Oregon and Washington using Landsat-5 TM data. Project products will be used in the effectiveness monitoring of the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) modules including late-successional / old-growth forests, northern spotted owls, marbled murrelets and aquatic / riparian species. IVMP is using regression modeling to relate satellite spectral values to “ground truth” derived from inventory plots in order to map forest characteristics as continuous variables rather than as classes. This technique allows the same map product to be delivered to each NWFP module team, which then can break the map into classes appropriate for their specific needs.

Integration of Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus and Lidar for Forest Ecosystems

The overall goal of this project is to provide a framework for integrating Landsat, lidar, ground, and environmental data for applications in forest ecology. The research addresses two primary objectives:
Objective 1. Statistically relate lidar waveforms to ground-measured forest structural attributes.
Objective 2. Develop alternative strategies for characterizing forest structure and composition over large landscapes using combined Landsat, lidar, ground, and environmental data.

Pacific Northwest Ecosystem Research Consortium: Willamette River Basin Mapping Project

The Pacific Northwest Ecosystem Research Consortium (PNW-ERC), funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, was created "to address specific priority environmental problems in the Northwest, while at the same time developing the ecological understanding and scientific approaches needed to implement ecosystem management on a broad scale." There are 31 focused projects within the PNW-ERC, addressing a wide variety of ecological research questions over two different ecological provinces. The Willamette River Basin Mapping Project (WRBMP) is an effort to provide a detailed land use/ land cover map of the Willamette River Basin from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data. This map will be used to correlate current land use patterns with existing ecological conditions, and to provide the reference for the generation of future land cover scenarios. In addition, the map will be used by various local planning groups, including the Willamette Valley Livability Forum and the Governor's Watershed Councils.

Causes and Consequences of Land Cover Change in a Greater Ecosystem: Trend and Risk Assessment, Monitoring, and Outreach

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) is probably typical of many greater ecosystems surrounding nature reserves. Abiotic factors result in biodiversity and intense human land use overlapping on private lands outside of nature reserves. Thus, these reserves, typically thought of as refugia for biodiversity, may be insufficient for maintaining native species. The goal of this study is to better understand these linkages between biodiversity and land use. Hopefully, with this knowledge, decision makers can find ways to better sustain both native species and the growing human community in the GYE.