scholarly journals Satellite Monitoring of Vegetation Phenology and Fire Fuel Conditions in Hawaiian Drylands

2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (21) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Elmore ◽  
Gregory P. Asner ◽  
R. Flint Hughes

Abstract Grass-fueled fires accelerate grassland expansion into dry Hawaiian woodlands by destroying native forests and by producing a disturbance regime that favors grass-dominated plant communities. Knowledge of grassland phenology is a key component of ecosystem assessments and fire management in Hawaii, but diverse topographic relief and poor field-sampling capabilities make ground studies impractical. Remote sensing offers the best approach for large-scale, spatially contiguous measurements of dryland vegetation phenology and fire fuel conditions. A 500-m spatial resolution, 8-day temporal resolution Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite time series of photosynthetic vegetation (PV), nonphotosynthetic vegetation (NPV), and exposed substrate conditions was developed for the island of Hawaii between 2000 and 2004. The results compared favorably with similar measurements of drylands from higher-resolution aircraft data. The satellite time series was compared with available environmental data on precipitation, fire history, and grazing intensity. From these analyses, the temporal patterns of PV and its conversion to NPV and finally to bare substrate were observed. An NPV buildup following fire of 7–8 yr was projected, and more heavily grazed lands were found to exhibit reduced NPV cover, most notably during the summer fire season. These results demonstrate the effects that land use and disturbance history have on fire conditions, and they support the concept that grazed lands managed to reduce litter buildup pose a lower risk of fire across ample geographic scales. Time series of satellite observations with modern analysis techniques can be used with environmental data to support a regional fire-monitoring program throughout Hawaii.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Potter ◽  
Olivia Alexander

Understanding trends in vegetation phenology and growing season productivity at a regional scale is important for global change studies, particularly as linkages can be made between climate shifts and the vegetation’s potential to sequester or release carbon into the atmosphere. Trends and geographic patterns of change in vegetation growth and phenology from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite data sets were analyzed for the state of Alaska over the period 2000 to 2018. Phenology metrics derived from the MODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time-series at 250 m resolution tracked changes in the total integrated greenness cover (TIN), maximum annual NDVI (MAXN), and start of the season timing (SOST) date over the past two decades. SOST trends showed significantly earlier seasonal vegetation greening (at more than one day per year) across the northeastern Brooks Range Mountains, on the Yukon-Kuskokwim coastal plain, and in the southern coastal areas of Alaska. TIN and MAXN have increased significantly across the western Arctic Coastal Plain and within the perimeters of most large wildfires of the Interior boreal region that burned since the year 2000, whereas TIN and MAXN have decreased notably in watersheds of Bristol Bay and in the Cook Inlet lowlands of southwestern Alaska, in the same regions where earlier-trending SOST was also detected. Mapping results from this MODIS time-series analysis have identified a new database of localized study locations across Alaska where vegetation phenology has recently shifted notably, and where land cover types and ecosystem processes could be changing rapidly.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2667 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xueting Wang ◽  
Sha Zhang ◽  
Lili Feng ◽  
Jiahua Zhang ◽  
Fan Deng

Crop phenology is a significant factor that affects the precision of crop area extraction by using the multi-temporal vegetation indices (VIs) approach. Considering the phenological differences of maize among the different regions, the summer maize cultivated area was estimated by using enhanced vegetation index (EVI) time series images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) over the Huanghuaihai Plain in China. By analyzing the temporal shift in summer maize calendars, linear regression equations for simulating the summer maize phenology were obtained. The simulated maize phenology was used to correct the MODIS EVI time series curve of summer maize. Combining the mean absolute distance (MAD) and p-tile algorithm, the cultivated areas of summer maize were distinguished over the Hunaghuaihai Plain. The accuracy of the extraction results in each province was above 85%. Comparing the maize area of two groups from MODIS-estimated and statistical data, the validation results showed that the R2 reached 0.81 at the city level and 0.69 at the county level. It demonstrated that the approach in this study has the ability to effectively map the summer maize area over a large scale and provides a novel idea for estimating the planting area of other crops.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1724 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen Helmer ◽  
Thomas Ruzycki ◽  
Barry Wilson ◽  
Kirk Sherrill ◽  
Michael Lefsky ◽  
...  

We mapped native, endemic, and introduced (i.e., exotic) tree species counts, relative basal areas of functional groups, species basal areas, and forest biomass from forest inventory data, satellite imagery, and environmental data for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Imagery included time series of Landsat composites and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-based phenology. Environmental data included climate, land-cover, geology, topography, and road distances. Large-scale deforestation and subsequent forest regrowth are clear in the resulting maps decades after large-scale transition back to forest. Stand age, climate, geology, topography, road/urban locations, and protection are clearly influential. Unprotected forests on more accessible or arable lands are younger and have more introduced species and deciduous and nitrogen-fixing basal areas, fewer endemic species, and less biomass. Exotic species are widespread—except in the oldest, most remote forests on the least arable lands, where shade-tolerant exotics may persist. Although the maps have large uncertainty, their patterns of biomass, tree species diversity, and functional traits suggest that for a given geoclimate, forest age is a core proxy for forest biomass, species counts, nitrogen-fixing status, and leaf longevity. Geoclimate indicates hard-leaved species commonness. Until global wall-to-wall remote sensing data from specialized sensors are available, maps from multispectral image time series and other predictor data should help with running ecosystem models and as sustainable development indicators. Forest attribute models trained with a tree species ordination and mapped with nearest neighbor substitution (Phenological Gradient Nearest Neighbor method, PGNN) yielded larger correlation coefficients for observed vs. mapped tree species basal areas than Cubist regression tree models trained separately on each species. In contrast, Cubist regression tree models of forest structural and functional attributes yielded larger such correlation coefficients than the ordination-trained PGNN models.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Schaaf

<p>Besides biodiversity, geodiversity is an important constituent of complex ecosystems. We define geodiversity here mainly as substrate and surface properties and topography.</p><p>Especially during initial stages of young ecosystems, the geodiversity of a site or landscape may have a lasting impact on dominating abiotic feedback mechanisms that set the stage for further ecological development.</p><p>The Chicken Creek catchment was constructed in the Lusatian mining area as a research platform to study initial ecosystem development at the landscape scale. The 6 ha site was formed as a hillslope with 2 to 3.5 % inclination. Up to 3.5 m of Pleistocene sands were dumped as an aquifer on top of a 1-2 m clay layer. The construction process using large-scale mining machinery resulted in slight differences in substrate properties in different parts of the catchment reflecting the natural variation in overburden material that was used for aquifer construction.</p><p>After completion of the construction in 2005, a cross-disciplinary long-term monitoring program was initiated to record major environmental parameters adapted to the development of the site. No amelioration, fertilization or planting was carried out to allow for primary succession.</p><p>Time series of environmental data recorded since 2005 revealed that the geodiversity of the initial site affected a number of both abiotic and biotic processes (e.g. surface runoff and erosion intensity, top soil development, colonization by plant functional traits, soil moisture and groundwater patterns, formation of biological soil crusts).</p><p>During its first 15 years, the Chicken Creek experimental catchment showed a very dynamic development. Whereas the abiotic geosystem of the first 2-3 years was characterized by heavy erosion and sediment transport, primary succession by invading vegetation and the unexpected formation of soil crusts within only a few years resulted in biotic-abiotic feedbacks that controlled catchment hydrology.</p><p>Our data indicate that even minor variations in initial substrate characteristics (e.g. texture) and stochastic single events like thunderstorms can have lasting impacts on the geomorphological, hydrological and biological development of the catchment.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 3069
Author(s):  
Yadong Liu ◽  
Junhwan Kim ◽  
David H. Fleisher ◽  
Kwang Soo Kim

Seasonal forecasts of crop yield are important components for agricultural policy decisions and farmer planning. A wide range of input data are often needed to forecast crop yield in a region where sophisticated approaches such as machine learning and process-based models are used. This requires considerable effort for data preparation in addition to identifying data sources. Here, we propose a simpler approach called the Analogy Based Crop-yield (ABC) forecast scheme to make timely and accurate prediction of regional crop yield using a minimum set of inputs. In the ABC method, a growing season from a prior long-term period, e.g., 10 years, is first identified as analogous to the current season by the use of a similarity index based on the time series leaf area index (LAI) patterns. Crop yield in the given growing season is then forecasted using the weighted yield average reported in the analogous seasons for the area of interest. The ABC approach was used to predict corn and soybean yields in the Midwestern U.S. at the county level for the period of 2017–2019. The MOD15A2H, which is a satellite data product for LAI, was used to compile inputs. The mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of crop yield forecasts was <10% for corn and soybean in each growing season when the time series of LAI from the day of year 89 to 209 was used as inputs to the ABC approach. The prediction error for the ABC approach was comparable to results from a deep neural network model that relied on soil and weather data as well as satellite data in a previous study. These results indicate that the ABC approach allowed for crop yield forecast with a lead-time of at least two months before harvest. In particular, the ABC scheme would be useful for regions where crop yield forecasts are limited by availability of reliable environmental data.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 3044
Author(s):  
Mingjie Liao ◽  
Rui Zhang ◽  
Jichao Lv ◽  
Bin Yu ◽  
Jiatai Pang ◽  
...  

In recent years, many cities in the Chinese loess plateau (especially in Shanxi province) have encountered ground subsidence problems due to the construction of underground projects and the exploitation of underground resources. With the completion of the world’s largest geotechnical project, called “mountain excavation and city construction,” in a collapsible loess area, the Yan’an city also appeared to have uneven ground subsidence. To obtain the spatial distribution characteristics and the time-series evolution trend of the subsidence, we selected Yan’an New District (YAND) as the specific study area and presented an improved time-series InSAR (TS-InSAR) method for experimental research. Based on 89 Sentinel-1A images collected between December 2017 to December 2020, we conducted comprehensive research and analysis on the spatial and temporal evolution of surface subsidence in YAND. The monitoring results showed that the YAND is relatively stable in general, with deformation rates mainly in the range of −10 to 10 mm/yr. However, three significant subsidence funnels existed in the fill area, with a maximum subsidence rate of 100 mm/yr. From 2017 to 2020, the subsidence funnels enlarged, and their subsidence rates accelerated. Further analysis proved that the main factors induced the severe ground subsidence in the study area, including the compressibility and collapsibility of loess, rapid urban construction, geological environment change, traffic circulation load, and dynamic change of groundwater. The experimental results indicated that the improved TS-InSAR method is adaptive to monitoring uneven subsidence of deep loess area. Moreover, related data and information would provide reference to the large-scale ground deformation monitoring and in similar loess areas.


1999 ◽  
Vol 45 (150) ◽  
pp. 370-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Morris ◽  
Shusun Li ◽  
Martin Jeffries

Abstract Synthetic aperture radar- (SAR-)derived ice-motion vectors and SAR interferometry were used to study the sea-ice conditions in the region between the coast and 75° N (~ 560 km) in the East Siberian Sea in the vicinity of the Kolyma River. ERS-1 SAR data were acquired between 24 December 1993 and 30 March 1994 during the 3 day repeat Ice Phase of the satellite. The time series of the ice-motion vector fields revealed rapid (3 day) changes in the direction and displacement of the pack ice. Longer-term (≥ 1 month) trends also emerged which were related to changes in large-scale atmospheric circulation. On the basis of this time series, three sea-ice zones were identified: the near-shore, stationary-ice zone; a transitional-ice zone;and the pack-ice zone. Three 3 day interval and one 9 day interval interferometric sets (amplitude, correlation and phase diagrams) were generated for the end of December, the begining of February and mid-March. They revealed that the stationary-ice zone adjacent to the coast is in constant motion, primarily by lateral displacement, bending, tilting and rotation induced by atmospheric/oceanic forcing. The interferogram patterns change through time as the sea ice becomes thicker and a network of cracks becomes established in the ice cover. It was found that the major features in the interferograms were spatially correlated with sea-ice deformation features (cracks and ridges) and major discontinuities in ice thickness.


Author(s):  
Christina M. Theodorou ◽  
Jordan E. Jackson ◽  
Ganesh Rajasekar ◽  
Miriam Nuño ◽  
Kaeli J. Yamashiro ◽  
...  

Abstract Purpose Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) have been established to combat the opioid epidemic, but there is no data on their efficacy in children. We hypothesized that a statewide PDMP mandate would be associated with fewer opioid prescriptions in pediatric surgical patients. Methods Patients < 18 undergoing inguinal hernia repair, orchiopexy, orchiectomy, appendectomy, or cholecystectomy at a tertiary children’s hospital were included. The primary outcome, discharge opioid prescription, was compared for 10 months pre-PDMP (n = 158) to 10 months post-PDMP (n = 228). Interrupted time series analysis was performed to determine the effect of the PDMP on opioid prescribing. Results Over the 20-month study period, there was an overall decrease in the rate of opioid prescriptions per month (− 3.6% change, p < 0.001). On interrupted time series analysis, PDMP implementation was not associated with a significant decrease in the monthly rate of opioid prescriptions (1.27% change post-PDMP, p = 0.4). However, PDMP implementation was associated with a reduction in opioid prescriptions of greater than 5 days’ supply (− 2.7% per month, p = 0.03). Conclusion Opioid prescriptions declined in pediatric surgical patients over the study time period. State-wide PDMP implementation was associated with a reduction in postoperative opioid prescriptions of more than 5 days’ duration.


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