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Full-Text Articles in Environmental Sciences

Processing Conservation Indicators With Open Source Tools: Lessons Learned From The Digital Observatory For Protected Areas, Lucy Bastin, Andrea Mandrici, Luca Battistella, Grégoire Dubois Sep 2017

Processing Conservation Indicators With Open Source Tools: Lessons Learned From The Digital Observatory For Protected Areas, Lucy Bastin, Andrea Mandrici, Luca Battistella, Grégoire Dubois

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

The European Commission has a commitment to open data and the support of open source software and standards. We present lessons learnt while populating and supporting the web and map services that underly the Joint Research Centre's Digital Observatory for Protected Areas. Challenges include: large datasets with highly complex geometries; topological inconsistencies, compounded by reprojection for equal-area calculations; multiple different representations of the same geographical entities, for example coastlines; licensing requirement to continuously update indicators to respond to monthly changes in the authoritative data. In order to compute and publish an array of indicators, we used a range of open …


Exploring The Relationship Between Climate And Forest Conditions In Forest Classee De La Mondah (Gabon) Using Remote Sensing Data, Mariano Mboumba Sep 2017

Exploring The Relationship Between Climate And Forest Conditions In Forest Classee De La Mondah (Gabon) Using Remote Sensing Data, Mariano Mboumba

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

This study aims to examine the relationship between temperature and precipitation as climatic factors and the vegetation characteristics in Forêt Classée de la Mondah (Gabon). A pixel based spatial analysis procedure with QGIS was used to extract vegetation characteristics from MODIS on Terra, NDVI band, data from February 2000 to December 2015, while temperature and precipitation were monitored from January 1980 to December 2015 to highlight climate fluctuations in the study area. Two regression analyses were conducted : one between temperature and NDVI and the other one between precipitation and NDVI. Results showed that temperature and precipitation did not vary …


Near-Real-Time Monitoring Of Insect Defoliation Using Landsat Time Series, Valerie J. Pasquarella, Bethany A. Bradley, Curtis E. Woodcock Jan 2017

Near-Real-Time Monitoring Of Insect Defoliation Using Landsat Time Series, Valerie J. Pasquarella, Bethany A. Bradley, Curtis E. Woodcock

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Introduced insects and pathogens impact millions of acres of forested land in the United States each year, and large-scale monitoring efforts are essential for tracking the spread of outbreaks and quantifying the extent of damage. However, monitoring the impacts of defoliating insects presents a significant challenge due to the ephemeral nature of defoliation events. Using the 2016 gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) outbreak in Southern New England as a case study, we present a new approach for near-real-time defoliation monitoring using synthetic images produced from Landsat time series. By comparing predicted and observed images, we assessed changes in vegetation …


Frequency Of Invasive Plant Occurrence Is Not A Suitable Proxy For Abundance In The Northeast United States, Tyler Cross, John T. Finn, Bethany A. Bradley Jan 2017

Frequency Of Invasive Plant Occurrence Is Not A Suitable Proxy For Abundance In The Northeast United States, Tyler Cross, John T. Finn, Bethany A. Bradley

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Measuring and predicting invasive plant abundance is critical for understanding impacts on ecosystems and economies. Although spatial abundance datasets remain rare, occurrence datasets are increasingly available across broad regional scales. We asked whether the frequency of these point occurrences can be used as a proxy for abundance of invasive plants. We compiled both occurrence and abundance data for 13 regionally important invasive plants in the northeast United States from herbarium records and several contributed distribution datasets. We integrated all available abundance information based on infested area, stem count, percent cover, or qualitative descriptions into abundance rankings ranging from 0 (absent) …


Cheatgrass (Bromus Tectorum) Distribution In The Intermountain Western United States And Its Relationship To Fire Frequency, Seasonality, And Ignitions, Bethany A. Bradley, Caroline A. Curtis, Emily J. Fusco, John T. Abatzoglou, Jennifer K. Balch, Sepideh Dadashi, Mao-Ning Tuanmu Jan 2017

Cheatgrass (Bromus Tectorum) Distribution In The Intermountain Western United States And Its Relationship To Fire Frequency, Seasonality, And Ignitions, Bethany A. Bradley, Caroline A. Curtis, Emily J. Fusco, John T. Abatzoglou, Jennifer K. Balch, Sepideh Dadashi, Mao-Ning Tuanmu

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) is an invasive grass pervasive across the Intermountain Western US and linked to major increases in fire frequency. Despite widespread ecological impacts associated with cheatgrass, we lack a spatially extensive model of cheatgrass invasion in the Intermountain West. Here, we leverage satellite phenology predictors and thousands of field surveys of cheatgrass abundance to create regional models of cheatgrass distribution and percent cover. We compare cheatgrass presence to fire probability, fire seasonality and ignition source. Regional models of percent cover had low predictive power (34% of variance explained), but distribution models based on a threshold of …


Tambora And The Mackerel Year: Phenology And Fisheries During An Extreme Climate Event, Karen E. Alexander, William B. Leavenworth, Theodore V. Willis, Carolyn Hall, Steven Mattocks, Steven M. Bittner, Emily Klein, Michelle Staudinger, Alexander Bryan, Julianne Rosset, Benjamin H. Carr, Adrian Jordaan Jan 2017

Tambora And The Mackerel Year: Phenology And Fisheries During An Extreme Climate Event, Karen E. Alexander, William B. Leavenworth, Theodore V. Willis, Carolyn Hall, Steven Mattocks, Steven M. Bittner, Emily Klein, Michelle Staudinger, Alexander Bryan, Julianne Rosset, Benjamin H. Carr, Adrian Jordaan

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Global warming has increased the frequency of extreme climate events, yet responses of biological and human communities are poorly understood, particularly for aquatic ecosystems and fisheries. Retrospective analysis of known outcomes may provide insights into the nature of adaptations and trajectory of subsequent conditions. We consider the 1815 eruption of the Indonesian volcano Tambora and its impact on Gulf of Maine (GoM) coastal and riparian fisheries in 1816. Applying complex adaptive systems theory with historical methods, we analyzed fish export data and contemporary climate records to disclose human and piscine responses to Tambora’s extreme weather at different spatial and temporal …


Ecosystem Service Supply And Capacity On U.S. Family Forestlands, Jesse Caputo, Brett Butler Jan 2017

Ecosystem Service Supply And Capacity On U.S. Family Forestlands, Jesse Caputo, Brett Butler

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Individuals and families collectively own more than 118 million ha of forestland in the USA. Using data from the USDA Forest Service’s National Woodland Owners Survey (NWOS), we characterize ecosystem services being produced on family forests as well as the beneficiaries who enjoy them. Approximately half of family forest owners provide one or more provisioning services. With the exception of logs, the provisioning services provided by the majority of owners are enjoyed directly by owners or their close associates (i.e., family, friends, and neighbors). Similarly, while more than half of family forest owners have provided recreational opportunities, a cultural service, …


The Importance Of Institutional Design For Distributed Local-Level Governance Of Groundwater: The Case Of California’S Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, Michael Kiparsky, Anita Milman, Dave Owen, Andrew T. Fisher Jan 2017

The Importance Of Institutional Design For Distributed Local-Level Governance Of Groundwater: The Case Of California’S Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, Michael Kiparsky, Anita Milman, Dave Owen, Andrew T. Fisher

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

In many areas of the world, groundwater resources are increasingly stressed, and unsustainable use has become common. Where existing mechanisms for governing groundwater are ineffective or nonexistent, new ones need to be developed. Local level groundwater governance provides an intriguing alternative to top-down models, with the promise of enabling management to better match the diversity of physical and social conditions in groundwater basins. One such example is emerging in California, USA, where new state law requires new local agencies to self-organize and act to achieve sustainable groundwater management. In this article, we draw on insights from research on common pool …