Digital Commons Network^™

Guidance Index For Shallow Landslide Hazard Analysis, Cheila Cullen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Rainfall-induced landslides are one of the most frequent hazards on slanted terrains. They lead to considerable economic losses and fatalities worldwide. Intense storms with high-intensity and long-duration rainfall have high potential to trigger rapidly moving soil masses due to changes in pore water pressure and seepage forces. Nevertheless, regardless of the intensity-duration of the rainfall, shallow landslides are influenced by antecedent soil moisture conditions. To the present day, no system exists that dynamically interrelates these two factors.

This work establishes a relationship between antecedent soil moisture and rainfall expressed in the form of a Shallow Landslide Index (SLI) at 1km …

Exploring Data Mining Techniques For Tree Species Classification Using Co-Registered Lidar And Hyperspectral Data, Julia K. Marrs

Theses and Dissertations

NASA Goddard’s LiDAR, Hyperspectral, and Thermal imager provides co-registered remote sensing data on experimental forests. Data mining methods were used to achieve a final tree species classification accuracy of 68% using a combined LiDAR and hyperspectral dataset, and show promise for addressing deforestation and carbon sequestration on a species-specific level.

Estimating The Probability Of Vegetation To Be Groundwater Dependent Based On The Evaluation Of Tree Models, Isabel C. Pérez Hoyos, Nir Y. Krakauer, Reza Khanbilvardi

Publications and Research

Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs) are increasingly threatened by humans’ rising demand for water resources. Consequently, it is imperative to identify the location of GDEs to protect them. This paper develops a methodology to identify the probability of an ecosystem to be groundwater dependent. Probabilities are obtained by modeling the relationship between the known locations of GDEs and factors influencing groundwater dependence, namely water table depth and climatic aridity index. Probabilities are derived for the state of Nevada, USA, using modeled water table depth and aridity index values obtained from the Global Aridity database. The model selected results from the performance …

A Review Of Advances In The Identification And Characterization Of Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems Using Geospatial Technologies, Isabel C. Pérez Hoyos, Nir Y. Krakauer, Reza Khanbilvardi, Roy A. Armstrong

Publications and Research

Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem (GDE) protection is increasingly being recognized as essential for the sustainable management and allocation of water resources. GDE services are crucial for human well-being and for a variety of flora and fauna. However, the conservation of GDEs is only possible if knowledge about their location and extent is available. Several studies have focused on the identification of GDEs at specific locations using ground-based measurements. However, recent progress in remote sensing technologies and their integration with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has provided alternative ways to map GDEs at a much larger spatial extent. This paper presents a review …