Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Impact Of Land Use/Cover Change And Slope Gradient On Soil Organic Carbon Stock In Anjeni Watershed, Northwest Ethiopia, Bethel Geremew, Tsegaye Tadesse, Bobe Bedadi, Hero T. Gollany, Kindie Tesfaye, Abebe Aschalew

Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Today’s agri-food systems face the triple challenge of addressing food security, adapting to climate change, and reducing the climate footprint by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). In agri-food systems, changes in land use and land cover (LULC) could affect soil physicochemical properties, particularly soil organic carbon (SOC) stock. However, the impact varies depending on the physical, social, and economic conditions of a given region or watershed. Given this, a study was conducted to quantify the impact of LULC and slope gradient on SOC stock and C sequestration rate in the Anjeni watershed, which is a highly populated and …

Land Use As A Predictor Of Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia Crassipes) Presence On The Entebbe Coast Of Lake Victoria, Uganda, Zachary Hoffman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Lake Victoria is shared amongst Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda and has tremendous ecological, economical, and cultural significance. Within the lake system, there are several problems, including the proliferation of an invasive weed, water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes). Therefore, this study aims to assess several factors that may correlate with water hyacinth proliferation. The specific objectives are (1) to identify possible correlations of water hyacinth density and land use around Entebbe, Uganda, and (2) to identify annual trends in water hyacinth coverage, to better inform policy and conservation efforts. Entebbe has a coastline of six land cover types: flooded vegetation, trees, grasses, …

Multi-Source Eo For Dynamic Wetland Mapping And Monitoring In The Great Lakes Basin, Michael Battaglia, Sarah Banks, Amir Behnamian, Laura Bourgeau-Chavez

Michigan Tech Publications

Wetland managers, citizens and government leaders are observing rapid changes in coastal wetlands and associated habitats around the Great Lakes Basin due to human activity and climate variability. SAR and optical satellite sensors offer cost effective management tools that can be used to monitor wetlands over time, covering large areas like the Great Lakes and providing information to those making management and policy decisions. In this paper we describe ongoing efforts to monitor dynamic changes in wetland vegetation, surface water extent, and water level change. Included are assessments of simulated Radarsat Constellation Mission data to determine feasibility of continued monitoring …

Impacts Of Hurricane Maria On Land And Convection Modification Over Puerto Rico, Nathan Hosannah, Prathap Ramamurthy, J. Marti, Jonathan Munoz, Jorge E. González

Publications and Research

Hurricane Maria drastically altered the landscape across the island of Puerto Rico. This article investigates modifications to surface-atmospheric interactions due to Hurricane Maria induced land damage and the associated impacts on local convective dynamics. Herein, we employed LANDSAT-8 image mosaics to quantify the hurricane induced land modification. Results of the analysis indicate that the island suffered significant forest damage—much of which registered as a 28.35% increase in barren land and a 10.85% increase in pasture. Smaller changes included a decrease in cultivated agricultural land cover by 0.76%, along with wetland and water increases of 0.62% and 0.25%, respectively. Pre and …

Migration Of The Tidal Marsh Range Under Sea Level Rise For Coastal Virginia, With Land Cover Data, Julie Herman, Molly Mitchell

Data

The layers in this geodatabase were intended to represent the land that is encompassed by the average tidal range as sea level rises in the Virginia coastal region, including Chesapeake Bay and tributaries, the Atlantic Ocean side of the Eastern Shore, and Virginia Beach. The data layers in this geodatabase represent each two foot range of elevation incremented by 0.5 ft (e.g. 0-2 ft, 0.5-2.5 ft, 1-3 ft, etc.) with the current land cover that exists in that range.

ArcGIS metadata is included in the geodatabase.

Further details are provided in the Geodatabase Information file located from the download tab.

Human-Associated Species Dominate Passerine Communities Across The United States, Helen R. Sofaer, Curtis H. Flather, Catherine S. Jarnevich, Kristin P. Davis, Liba Pejchar

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Aim: Human development and agriculture can have transformative and homogenizing effects on natural systems, shifting the composition of ecological communities towards non-native and native species that tolerate or thrive under human-dominated conditions. These impacts cannot be fully captured by summarizing species presence, as they include dramatic changes to patterns of species abundance. However, how human land use patterns and species invasions intersect to shape patterns of abundance and dominance within ecological communities is poorly understood even in well-known taxa.

Location: Conterminous United States.

Time period: 2010–2012.

Major taxa studied: Passeriformes.

Methods: We analyse continental-scale monitoring data to study the proportional …

Human-Associated Species Dominate Passerine Communities Across The United States, Helen R. Sofaer, Curtis H. Flather, Catherine S. Jarnevich, Kristin P. Davis

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Aim: Human development and agriculture can have transformative and homogenizing effects on natural systems, shifting the composition of ecological communities towards non-native and native species that tolerate or thrive under human-dominated conditions. These impacts cannot be fully captured by summarizing species presence, as they include dramatic changes to patterns of species abundance. However, how human land use patterns and species invasions intersect to shape patterns of abundance and dominance within ecological communities is poorly understood even in well-known taxa.

Location: Conterminous United States.

Time period: 2010–2012.

Major taxa studied: Passeriformes.

Methods: We analyse continental-scale monitoring data to study the proportional …

Land Surface Temperature Variability Across India: A Remote Sensing Satellite Perspective, Satya Prakash, Hamidreza Norouzi

Publications and Research

Land surface temperature (LST) plays a key role in the surface energy budget computation and land surface process studies. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors onboard the Aqua and Terra satellites provide comprehensive global LST estimates at a fine spatial resolution. The MODIS products were recently upgraded to Collection 6, and shown to be more accurate than its predecessor Collection 5 products. In this study, LST and its variability have been examined across India from Collection 6 of the Aqua MODIS data at 0.05° spatial resolution for the period of 2003 to 2017. All-India mean LST characteristics show distinctive …

Stream Water Quality To Support Huc 12 Prioritization In The Lake Wister Watershed, Oklahoma: August 2017 Through May 2019, Bradley J. Austin, Brina A. Smith, Brian E. Haggard

Technical Reports

Nonpoint source pollution associated with human land use (agriculture and urbanization) is one of the leading causes of impairment to waterways in the United States (EPA 2000). The primary pollutants associated with agricultural and urban land use are sediment and nutrients which enter nearby streams during rain events and are then carried downstream. These sediments and nutrients may result in water quality issues in the downstream water bodies like increased algal growth or decreased water clarity (e.g. Smith et al., 1999). Best management practices (BMPs) are often used to mitigate the effects of nonpoint source pollution in the watershed. Practices …

Urban-Rural Surface Temperature Deviation And Intra-Urban Variations Contained By An Urban Growth Boundary, Kevan B. Moffett, Yasuyo Makido, Vivek Shandas

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

The urban heat island (UHI) concept describes heat trapping that elevates urban temperatures relative to rural temperatures, at least in temperate/humid regions. In drylands, urban irrigation can instead produce an urban cool island (UCI) effect. However, the UHI/UCI characterization suffers from uncertainty in choosing representative urban/rural endmembers, an artificial dichotomy between UHIs and UCIs, and lack of consistent terminology for other patterns of thermal variation at nested scales. We use the case of a historically well-enforced urban growth boundary (UGB) around Portland (Oregon, USA): to explore the representativeness of the surface temperature UHI (SUHI) as derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging …

Urbanisation Alters Fatty Acids In Stream Food Webs, Sarah Whorley, Nathan Smucker, Anne Kuhn, John Wehr

Articles & Book Chapters

Fatty acids are essential to macroinvertebrate growth and reproduction and can indicate food web structure and nutritional quality of basal resources. However, broad‐scale examinations of how catchment land cover and associated stressors affect the proportions of fatty acids (FAs) in stream food webs are few.

Here, we: (1) examine relationships among proportions of FAs among benthic periphyton and macroinvertebrate collector/gatherers, shredders, and predators; and (2) test if relationships between periphytic and macroinvertebrate FAs were altered due to the intensity of urban development in catchments.

Proportions of the ≥20‐C eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA 20:5ω3), arachidonic acid (ARA 20:4ω6), and docosahexaenoic acid (22:6ω3) …

Observed Differences Between Near-Surface Air And Skin Temperatures Using Satellite And Ground-Based Data, Satya Prakash, Farjana Shati, Hamidreza Norouzi, Reginald Blake

Publications and Research

Accurate estimates of long-term land surface temperature (T_s) and near-surface air temperature (T_a) at finer spatio-temporal resolutions are crucial for surface energy budget studies, for environmental applications, for land surface model data assimilation, and for climate change assessment and its associated impacts. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors onboard the Aqua satellite provide a unique opportunity to estimate both temperatures twice daily at the global scale. In this study, differences between T_a and T_s were assessed locally over regions of North America from 2009 to 2013 …

Bringing High Resolution Land Cover Products To The Puget Sound Region And U.S., Melissa Rosa

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Understanding land cover patterns and their changes is essential to comprehensive natural resource management and conservation planning. Land cover products derived from satellite imagery and other remotely sensed data can provide information for resource inventories and assessments, track progress of management plans, and monitor impacts of ecosystem change at the landscape scale. For almost two decades, NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management has been using satellite imagery to produce standardized, regional land cover and change information for the coastal U.S. through its Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP). C-CAP products are updated every five years and provide additional wetland categories for nearshore …

Global Land Surface Emissivity Estimation From Amsr2 Observations, Satya Prakash, Hamid Norouzi, Marzieh Azarderakhsh, Reginald Blake, Kibrewossen Tesfagiorgis

Publications and Research

A reliable estimate of emissivity is critical for a wide range of applications for the atmosphere, the biosphere, the lithosphere, the cryosphere, and the hydrosphere. This study uses three years (August 2012 – July 2015) of data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-2 (AMSR2) sensor that is onboard the Global Change Observation Mission 1st Water (GCOM-W1) satellite to explore estimates of instantaneous global land emissivity. A method is adopted to remove the known inconsistency in penetration depths between microwave brightness temperatures and infrared-based ancillary data that could cause differences between day and night emissivity estimates. After removing the diurnal atmospheric …

Evaluating Land Cover Influences On Model Uncertainties—A Case Study Of Cropland Carbon Dynamics In The Mid-Continent Intensive Campaign Region, Zhengpeng Li, Shuguang Liu, Xuesong Zhang, Tristram O. West, Stephen M. Ogle, Naijun Zhou

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

tQuantifying spatial and temporal patterns of carbon sources and sinks and their uncertainties acrossagriculture-dominated areas remains challenging for understanding regional carbon cycles. Character-istics of local land cover inputs could impact the regional carbon estimates but the effect has not beenfully evaluated in the past. Within the North American Carbon Program Mid-Continent Intensive (MCI)Campaign, three models were developed to estimate carbon fluxes on croplands: an inventory-basedmodel, the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model, and the General Ensemble biogeo-chemical Modeling System (GEMS) model. They all provided estimates of three major carbon fluxes oncropland: net primary production (NPP), net ecosystem production (NEP), and …

Monitoring Conterminous United States (Conus) Land Cover Change With Web-Enabled Landsat Data (Weld), M C. Hansen, A. Egorov, P V. Potapov, S V. Stehman, A Tyukavina, S A. Turubanova, D. P. Roy, S J. Goetz, T R. Loveland, J Ju, A. Kommareddy, V. Kovalskyy, C Forsyth, T Bents

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Forest cover loss and bare ground gain from 2006 to 2010 for the conterminous United States (CONUS) were quantified at a 30 m spatial resolution using Web-Enabled Landsat Data available from the USGS Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) (http://landsat.usgs.gov/WELD.php). The approach related multi-temporal WELD metrics and expert-derived training data for forest cover loss and bare ground gain through a decision tree classification algorithm. Forest cover loss was reported at state and ecoregional scales, and the identification of core forests' absent of change was made and verified using LiDAR data from the GLAS (Geoscience Laser Altimetry System) instrument. …