Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

From Pixels To Plants: Remote Sensing Of California Invasive Plants, Kenneth Rangel

Master's Projects and Capstones

Invasive plants cause significant impacts to ecosystems, the economy, and human health. California has experienced significant plant invasions and is well suited to future invasion because of its Mediterranean climate and human disturbance. Eradication or control of invasive plant species requires a detailed understanding of their spatial distribution, which typically involves on the ground surveys that can be expensive or inconsistent. Remote sensing offers a potential alternative or supplement to in-person invasive plant mapping. This study performed a comparative analysis of 41 remote sensing studies that mapped the distribution of California invasive plants. I found that while high spectral resolution …

A Citizen Science Experiment: How Well Do Park Visitors Identify Wetland Health?, Madison Cicha, Kassidy Haynes, Andrew Mehring, Mark Tierney, Andrea Gaughan Phd

The Cardinal Edge

Citizen science refers to a discipline of scientific projects that utilize public participation and collaboration to complete or supplement a collected data set. Our study as a whole aims to assess the greenhouse gas (GHG) source-sink status of small, constructed wetlands in Kentucky through field and remotely sensed data. Additional facets of the project include evaluating the influence of the primary producer community on GHG uptake and emissions, and our ability to identify healthy small wetlands from science and community-based perspectives. Specifically, the citizen science aspect intends to assess both (1) gaps between knowledge of the general public regarding wetland …

Coupling Dendroecological And Remote Sensing Techniques To Assess The Biophysical Traits Of Juniperus Virginiana And Pinus Ponderosa Within The Semi-Arid Grasslands Of The Nebraska Sandhills, R. Allen, Anastasios Mazis, Brian Wardlow, P. Cherubini, J. Hiller, David A. Wedin, Tala Awada

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Woody species encroachment is occurring within the semi-arid grasslands of the Nebraska Sandhills U.S., primarily driven by native Juniperus virginiana and Pinus ponderosa, altering ecosystems and the services they provide. Effective, low cost, and cross-scale monitoring of woody species growth and performance is necessary for integrated grassland and forest management in the face of climate variability and change. In this study, we sought to establish a relationship between remote sensing-derived vegetation indices (VIs), tree dendrochronological (raw and standardized tree ring width) measurements, and the abiotic environment [(precipitation, temperature, Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), and soil water content (0–300 cm …

Characterizing The Vegetation And Effects Of Climate Change On Parris Island, A Sea Island Ecosystem, Cody Hart Goodson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Coastal habitats provide many ecosystem services, protecting coastlines from storm surges and erosion, diminishing the effects of eutrophication, sequestering large amounts of carbon, and acting as vital wildlife habitat. Sea-level rise and increased storm surge intensity associated with climate change are increasingly disrupting coastal habitats. These disturbances can shift environmental gradients that drive the zonation of coastal vegetation types, driving habitat conversion. Monitoring coastal habitat conversion can improve our understanding of the dynamic effects of climate change on these landscapes. Therefore, our objectives for chapter 1 were to identify and describe the distributions of vegetation types present on Marine Corps …

Revisiting The Carbon–Biodiversity Connection, John Gamon

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

This article is a Commentary on Schuldt et al., https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16697

The link between biodiversity and ecosystem function has long been a subject of intense interest and debate among biologists, going back to the time of Charles Darwin, whose ideas on species interactions presaged subsequent discussions of biodiversity and ecosystem function (Peterson et al., 1998). Since then, many considerations of community diversity have centered on the importance of species or functional diversity for maintaining system resilience in the face of disturbance, analogous to the way that interwoven threads maintain the function and integrity of fabric. While our language, concepts, and methods …

Monitoring Bull Kelp (Nereocystis Leutkeana) Remotely At High Resolutions, Hannah E. Joss

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Bull kelp (Nereocystis leutkeana) is a foundational seaweed in nearshore, marine systems, traditionally supporting economically important fisheries, extracting nutrients in its vicinity, and sequestering carbon and transporting it great distances to subsidize shallow and deep-sea environments. Bull kelp is also a culturally important species for some indigenous peoples along the northeastern Pacific coastline and provides a harvestable product with growing demand. Global trends in kelp distribution show patterns of decline, and the immense loss of northern California bull kelp forests in response to climatic changes have highlighted the need for alternative sources of kelp, both for the product …

Coupling Dendrochronology And Remote Sensing Techniques To Assess The Biophysical Traits Of Juniperus Virginiana And Pinus Ponderosa Within Grassland Communities In The Semi-Arid Grasslands Of The Nebraska Sandhills, Reece Allen

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Woody species encroachment is occurring within the sandhills region in Nebraska, primarily driven by Juniperus virginiana and Pinus ponderosa, altering ecosystems and the services they provide. Effective, low cost, and cross-scale monitoring of woody species growth and performance is necessary for integrated grassland and forest management in the face of climate variability and change. In this study, we sought to establish a relationship between remote sensing-derived vegetation indices (VIs) and dendrochronological (raw and standardized tree ring width) measurements to assess the performance of encroaching woody J. virginiana and P. ponderosa located within the Nebraska National Forest in the sandhills. …

Multi-Criteria Evaluation Model For Classifying Marginal Cropland In Nebraska Using Historical Crop Yield And Biophysical Characteristics, Andrew Laws

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Marginal cropland is suboptimal due to historically low and variable productivity and limiting biophysical characteristics. To support future agricultural management and policy decisions in Nebraska, U.S.A, it is important to understand where cropland is marginal for its two most economically important crops: corn (Zea mays) and soybean (Glycine max). As corn and soybean are frequently planted in a crop rotation, it is important to consider if there is a relationship with cropland marginality. Based on the current literature, there exists a need for a flexible yet robust methodology for identifying marginal land at different scales, which …

Land Cover Classification And Change During Mine Reclamation In Northeast Florida Using Multispectral Imagery, Daniel Burow, Robert Brown, Alexis Caldwell, Patrick Hunter, Jett-Ramy Kaddour, Alexander Kingma, Justin Kozicki, Blake Neal, Abigail Neff, Rylan Randolph, Devon Tanner, Isaiah Vahos

Sustainability Conference

Titanium is commonly used in the aerospace industry because it is lightweight and durable in extreme temperatures. The Green Cove Springs Mine, near Green Cove Springs, Florida, was used for mining and processing titanium and other minerals from 1972 until 2009. Since then, the mine area is being reclaimed, or rehabilitated and restored to its natural state, as required by Florida Department of Environmental Protection regulations. In this study, we use high-resolution multispectral satellite and aerial imagery obtained from 2016 to 2022 to examine land cover (LC) changes at the Green Cove Springs Mine during this reclamation period. We use …

Canopy Spectral Reflectance Detects Oak Wilt At The Landscape Scale Using Phylogenetic Discrimination, Gerard Sapes, Cathleen Lapadat, Anna K. Schweiger, Jennifer Juzwik, Rebecca Montgomery, Hamed Gholizadeh, Philip A. Townsend, John A. Gamon, Jeannine Cavender-Bares

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The oak wilt disease caused by the invasive fungal pathogen Bretziella fagacearum is one of the greatest threats to oak-dominated forests across the Eastern United States. Accurate detection and monitoring over large areas are necessary for management activities to effectively mitigate and prevent the spread of oak wilt. Canopy spectral reflectance contains both phylogenetic and physiological information across the visible near-infrared (VNIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) ranges that can be used to identify diseased red oaks. We develop partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models using airborne hyperspectral reflectance to detect diseased canopies and assess the importance of VNIR, SWIR, …

Fine Scale Mapping Of Laurentian Mixed Forest Natural Habitat Communities Using Multispectral Naip And Uav Datasets Combined With Machine Learning Methods, Parth P. Bhatt

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Natural habitat communities are an important element of any forest ecosystem. Mapping and monitoring Laurentian Mixed Forest natural communities using high spatial resolution imagery is vital for management and conservation purposes. This study developed integrated spatial, spectral and Machine Learning (ML) approaches for mapping complex vegetation communities. The study utilized ultra-high and high spatial resolution National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) datasets, and Digital Elevation Model (DEM). Complex natural vegetation community habitats in the Laurentian Mixed Forest of the Upper Midwest. A detailed workflow is presented to effectively process UAV imageries in a dense forest environment …

Floodplain Forests Vegetation Dynamics Driven By Water Deficits Across Scales, Nga Thanh Nguyen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Restoration of floodplain ecosystems relies on identifying the most crucial hydrologic process which has been altered by human and climate. Flooding is a well-known dominant hydrologic process for floodplain ecosystems, but surprisingly little is known about drought's role in structuring ecosystems. In addition, several issues remained uncertain, such as the nature of drought within floodplains and the sensitivity of floodplain species-specific growth to climate. These gaps of understanding have in common in missing observations of mechanistic pathways of vegetation response to water deficits at multiple scales in time and space.Generally, this research contributed to floodplain management by expanding our understanding …

Magnitude And Rates Of Agriculturally-Induced Soil Erosion In The Midwestern United States, Evan Thaler

Doctoral Dissertations

Fertile, agricultural productive soils are essential for producing food for a growing global population. Soil erosion diminishes soil quality, threatens food security by decreasing crop productivity, and degrades ecosystem health through increased rates of sedimentation and runoff. Despite decades and thousands of soil erosion studies, robust scalable methods for estimating the magnitude and rates of soil erosion have been elusive. In this dissertation, we develop a remote sensing method for quantifying the areal extent of historical loss in an agricultural landscape and provide a method for estimating the total thickness of soil loss and rates of historical soil loss in …

Site Selection For Coral Reef Restoration Using Airborne Imaging Spectroscopy, Steven R. Schill, Gregory P. Asner, Valerie Pietsch Mcnulty, F. Joseph Pollock, Aldo Croquer, Nicholas R. Vaughn, Ximena Escovar-Fadul, George Raber, Elizabeth Shaver

Faculty Publications

Over the past decade, coral restoration efforts have increased as reefs continue to decline at unprecedented rates. Identifying suitable coral outplanting locations to maximize coral survival continues to be one of the biggest challenges for restoration practitioners. Here, we demonstrate methods of using derivatives from imaging spectroscopy from the Global Airborne Observatory (GAO) to identify suitable coral outplant sites and report on the survival rates of restored coral at those sites. Outplant sites for a community-based, citizen science outplant event in Bávaro, Dominican Republic, were identified using expert-defined criteria applied to a suitability model from data layers derived from airborne …

Groundwater Level Assessment And Prediction In The Nebraska Sand Hills Using Lidar-Derived Lake Water Level, Nawaraj Shrestha, Aaron R. Mittelstet, Aaron R. Young, Troy E. Gilmore, David C. Gosselin, Yi Qi, Caner Zeyrek

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The spatial variability of groundwater levels is often inferred from sparsely located hydraulic head observations in wells. The spatial correlation structure derived from sparse observations is associated with uncertainties that spread to estimates at unsampled locations. In areas where surface water represents the nearby groundwater level, remote sensing techniques can estimate and increase the number of hydraulic head measurements. This research uses light detection and ranging (LIDAR) to estimate lake surface water level to characterize the groundwater level in the Nebraska Sand Hills (NSH), an area with few observation wells. The LIDAR derived lake groundwater level accuracy was within 40 …

Aquatic Habitat Changes Within The Channelized And Impounded Arkansas River, Arkansas, Usa, Jonathan J. Spurgeon, Mike Rhodes, J. Wesley Neal, Kristine O. Evans

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

River-wide changes in morphologic character following channelization and impoundment alter the occurrence and distribution of surface water and available habitats for aquatic organisms. Quantifying patterns of creation, redistribution or disappearance of habitats at river-wide and decadal spatiotemporal scales can promote understanding regarding trajectories of different habitat types following alteration and prospects of direct habitat enhancement projects within altered alluvial rivers. Newly available remote-sensing tools and databases may improve detection of river-wide changes in habitat through time. We used a combination of remote-sensing data and generalized linear models to assess changes in surface water coverage from 1984 to 2015 among aquatic …

Using Uav And Traditional Remote Sensing Data To Detect Vegetation Vigor And Monitor Stream Morphology In A Desert Riparian Ecosystem, Jordan Bradley Adair

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Mono Lake is a terminal lake in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains. The streams that feed Mono Lake support a unique desert riparian ecosystem. Rush Creek was the stream of interest for this study. The objective of this research is to determine if remotely sensed imagery can be used to determine vegetation vigor and measure stream morphologic features in a desert riparian area. The goals were to evaluate different sources of remotely sensed imagery to make these determinations. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used to monitor vegetation vigor along Rush Creek. Google Earth imagery and UAV derived imagery …

Regional Impacts Of Invasive Species And Climate Change On Black Ash Wetlands, Joseph Shannon

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

For more than a decade intensive research on the ecohydrology of black ash wetland ecosystems has been performed to understand these systems before they are drastically altered by the invasive species, emerald ash borer (EAB). In that time there has been little research aimed at the scale and persistence of the alterations. Three distinct but related research articles will be presented to demonstrate a method for moderate resolution mapping of black ash across its entire range, understand the relative impacts of EAB and climate change on probable future wetland conditions, and develop an experimental and modeling approach to quantify and …

Comparison Of Low-Cost Commercial Unpiloted Digital Aerial Photogrammetry To Airborne Laser Scanning Across Multiple Forest Types In California, James Edward Lamping

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Science-based forest management requires quantitative information about forest attributes traditionally collected via sampled field plots in a forest inventory program. Remote sensing tools, such as active three-dimensional (3D) Light Detection and Ranging (lidar), are increasingly utilized to supplement and even replace field-based forest inventories. However, lidar remains cost prohibitive for smaller areas and repeat measurement, often limiting its use to single acquisitions of large contiguous areas. Recent advancements in unpiloted aerial systems (UAS), digital aerial photogrammetry (DAP) and high precision global positioning systems (HPGPS) have the potential to provide low-cost time and place flexible 3D data to support forest inventory …

A Look At Land Cover Classification Methods In Northern California With The Use Of High Spatial Resolution Geospatial Data, Lucila Corro

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Land use and land cover (LULC) mapping plays a vital role in understanding the state of the world, showing us a visual representation of the natural and anthropogenic features covering our planet. Northern California in the United States is home to many critical habitats that provide for a variety of endemic and some threatened and engendered species, making it an area of particular concern to better understand and monitor. There is a greater need to identify specific methods for vegetation modeling in Northern California due to its unique species; to do this we examined two case studies with the following …

Satellite-Based Phenology Analysis In Evaluating The Response Of Puerto Rico And The United States Virgin Islands' Tropical Forests To The 2017 Hurricanes, Melissa Collin

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The functionality of tropical forest ecosystems and their productivity is highly related to the timing of phenological events. Understanding forest responses to major climate events is crucial for predicting the potential impacts of climate change. This research utilized Landsat satellite data and ground-based Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plot data to investigate the dynamics of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands’ (PRVI) tropical forests after two major hurricanes in 2017. Analyzing these two datasets allowed for validation of the remote sensing methodology with field data and for the investigation of whether this is an appropriate approach for estimating forest …

Bicknell's Thrush Habitat Use On Commercial Forests In Maine, Usa, Kaitlyn Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Forest reliant species may be significantly impacted by forest management practices. Understanding these impacts, and whether they are positive or negative, requires a species- specific understanding of habitat use. Bicknell’s thrush (Catharus bicknelli) is a range-restricted habitat specialist occurring in balsam fir (Abies balsamea) dominated montane forests that have been recently disturbed and are undergoing successional growth. While research investigating this species’ habitat use has been conducted throughout much of its breeding range, knowledge of Bicknell’s thrush habitat use in Maine is lacking. Greater understanding of habitat use in Maine would improve the ability of forest managers to promote conservation …

Remote Sensing And Three-Dimensional Photogrammetric Analysis Of Glaciofluvial Sand And Gravel Deposits For Aggregate Resource Assessment In Mchenry County, Illinois, Usa, Xiaodong Miao, Christopher J. Stohr, Paul R. Hanson, Qiansuo Wang

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Sand and gravel deposits, one of the most common natural resources, are used as aggregates mostly by the construction industry, and their extraction contributes significantly to a region's economy. Thus, it is critical to locate sand and gravel deposits, and evaluate their quantity and quality safely and quickly. However, information on aggregate resources is generally only available from conventional two-dimensional (2-D) geologic maps, and direct field measurements for quality analysis at outcrops are time consuming and are often not possible due to safety concerns, or simply because exposures are too difficult to access. In this study, we presented a methodology …

Leaf Reflectance Spectra Capture The Evolutionary History Of Seed Plants, Jose Eduardo Meireles, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Philip A. Townsend, Susan Ustin, John A. Gamon, Anna K. Schweiger, Michael E. Schaepman, Gregory P. Asner, Roberta E. Martin, Aditya Singh, Franziska Schrodt, Adam Chlus, Brian C. O’Meara

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

• Leaf reflection spectra have been increasingly used to assess plant diversity. However, we do not yet understand how spectra vary across the tree of life or how the evolution of leaf traits affects the differentiation of spectra among species and lineages.
• Here we describe a framework that integrates spectra with phylogenies and apply it to aglobal dataset of over 16 000 leaf-level spectra (400–2400 nm) for 544 seed plant species. We test for phylogenetic signal in spectra, evaluate their ability to classify lineages, and characterize their evolutionary dynamics.
• We show that phylogenetic signal is present in leaf spectra but that …

Czech Drought Monitor System For Monitoring And Forecasting Of Agricultural Drought And Drought Impacts, Miroslav Trnka, Petr Hlavinka, Martin Možný, Daniela Semerádová, Petr Štěpánek, Jan Balek, Lenka Bartošová, Pavel Zahradníček, Monika Bláhová, Petr Skalák, Aleš Farda, Michael Hayes, Mark D. Svoboda, Wolfgang Wagner, Josef Eitzinger, Milan Fischer, Zdeněk Zalud

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The awareness of drought and its impacts on Central Europe increased after the significant drought episodes in 2000, 2003, 2012 and 2015, which were all estimated to have caused over 500 million Euro in damage in the Czech Republic alone. These events indicated the need for timely and highresolution monitoring tools that would enable analysing, monitoring and forecasting of drought events. Monitoring soil water availability in near real time and at high-resolution (up to 0.5 × 0.5 km for some products) helps farmers and water managers to mitigate impacts of these extreme events. The Czech Drought Monitor was developed between …

A Review Of Drought Monitoring Using Remote Sensing And Data Mining Methods, R. Inoubli, A.B. Abbes, I.R. Farah, V. Singh, T. Tadesse, A.Z. Abiy

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond Inventories: Emergence Of A New Era In Rangeland Monitoring, Matthew O. Jones, David E. Naugle, Dirac Twidwell, Daniel R. Uden, Jeremy D. Maestas, Brady W. Allred

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

In the absence of technology-driven monitoring platforms, US rangeland policies, management practices, and outcome assessments have been primarily informed by the extrapolation of local information from national-scale rangeland inventories. A persistent monitoring gap between plot-level inventories and the scale at which rangeland assessments are conducted has required decision makers to fill data gaps with statistical extrapolations or assumptions of homogeneity and equilibrium. This gap is now being bridged with spatially comprehensive, annual, rangeland monitoring data across all western US rangelands to as- sess vegetation conditions at a resolution appropriate to inform cross-scale assessments and decisions. In this paper, 20-yr trends …

Current Frameworks For Reference Et And Crop Coefficient Calculation, R G. Allen, Ayse Kilic, Clarence W. Robison

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Estimation of evapotranspiration is under continual development and evolution, with significant developments and standardizations made during the past three decades for both reference ET (ETref) and for crop coefficients (Kc). These standardizations provide consistency and reproducibility in estimating ETref and a consistent basis for determining and expressing Kc curves, especially at the local scale. The application of the dual Kc procedure is growing, and has strong potential for improving accuracy of ET estimates as compared to the single Kc approach. This article describes current structures for estimating crop coefficients including the standardized FAO-56 dual Kc approach, with example applications. Emphasis …

Metric-Gis: An Advanced Energy Balance Model For Computing Crop Evapotranspiration In A Gis Environment, J. M. Ramírez-Cuesta, R G. Allen, D. S. Intrigliolo, Ayse Kilic, Clarence W. Robison, Ricardo Trezza, C. Santos, I. J. Lorite

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

A novel ArcGIS toolbox that applies the Mapping Evapotranspiration with Internalized Calibration model was developed and tested in a semi-arid environment. The tool, named METRIC-GIS, facilitates the pre-processing operations and the automatic identification of potential calibration and pixels review. The energy balance components obtained from METRIC-GIS were contrasted with those from the original METRIC version (R² = 1; RMSE = 0 W m^–2 or mm day^–1 for ET_c) Additionally, an irrigated scheme located at southern Spain was considered for assessing Kc variability in the maize fields with METRIC-GIS. The identified spatial variability was mainly due …

A Review Of Vegetation Phenological Metrics Extraction Using Time-Series, Multispectral Satellite Data, Linglin Zeng, Brian D. Wardlow, Daxiang Xiang, Shun Hu, Deren Li

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Vegetation dynamics and phenology play an important role in inter-annual vegetation changes in terrestrial ecosystems and are key indicators of climate-vegetation interactions, land use/land cover changes, and variation in year-to-year vegetation productivity. Satellite remote sensing data have been widely used for vegetation phenology monitoring over large geographic domains using various types of observations and methods over the past several decades. The goal of this paper is to present a detailed review of existing methods for phenology detection and emerging new techniques based on the analysis of time-series, multispectral remote sensing imagery. This paper summarizes the objective and applications of detecting …