Remote Sensing Commons^™

A Model Of The Effects Of Deforestation On Local Climate In The North Cascades, Monica R. H. Jasper

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Changes in areal extent of land cover types may lead to alterations in the surface energy budget that contribute to anthropogenic climate forcing. This study examines the effects of deforestation in the Cascade Range on local temperature. Temperature sensors were installed in 14 forest stands, taking measurements for one year. Estimated tree age, circumference, and species were recorded to calculate stand density index. Satellite imagery was used to calculate shade fraction from spectral mixture analysis, which is a proxy for canopy structure and density. These data were used to construct seasonal cycles of temperature to model variation with stand density …

Stone Walls Of New York And New England, John W. Delano Phd

Atmospheric and Environmental Science Faculty Scholarship

Stone walls are an enduring testimony of the hard labors and work ethic of subsistence family farms on ~100-acre lots. Those lots had been defined by hardy teams of surveyors who used compasses and chains to define the magnetic directions and lengths of boundaries. Farmers cleared (‘improved’) large sections of their land of trees for the purpose of grazing animals and growing crops. As we venture into the deep woods today, we often encounter these forgotten stonewalls that reveal that others long ago were there. Modern airborne surveys using ‘Light Detection And Ranging’ (LiDAR) not only reveal the vast extent …

Airborne Lidar Acquisition, Post-Processing And Accuracy-Checking For A 3d Webgis Of Copan, Honduras, Jennifer Von Schwerin, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Fabio Remondino, Maria Grazia Spera, Michael Auer, Nicolas Billen, Lukas Loos, Laura Stelson, Markus Reindel

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archaeological projects increasingly collect airborne LiDAR data to use as a remote sensing tool for survey and analysis. Publication possibilities for LiDAR datasets, however, are limited due to the large size and often proprietary nature of the data. Fortunately, web-based, geographic information systems (WebGIS) that can securely manage temporal and spatial data hold great promise as virtual research environments for working with and publishing LiDAR data. To test this and to obtain new data for archaeological research, in 2013, the MayaArch3D Project (www.mayaarch3d.org) collected LiDAR data for the archaeological site of Copan, Honduras. Results include: 1) more accurate archaeological maps, …

Accuracy Assessment Of Pictometry® Height Measurements Stratified By Cardinal Direction And Image Magnification Factor, Daniel Unger, David Kulhavy, I-Kuai Hung, Yanli Zhang

Faculty Publications

The aim of this project was to ascertain if Pictometry^® estimated height could be used in lieu of field-based height estimation. Height of a light pole measured with a telescopic height pole was compared to Pictometry^® hyperspatial 4-inch (10.2 centimeters) multispectral imagery estimated light pole height on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas. Average percent agreement between light pole height and Pictometry^® estimated light pole height summarized by Pictometry^® image magnification factors at 100%, 125%, 150%, 200%, and 300% magnification were within 98% of light pole height with percent disagreement ranging from …

Computationally Inexpensive Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (Oli) Pansharpening, Hankui Zhang, David P. Roy

GSCE Faculty Publications

Pansharpening algorithms fuse higher spatial resolution panchromatic with lower spatial resolution multispectral imagery to create higher spatial resolution multispectral images. The free-availability and systematic global acquisition of Landsat 8 data indicate an expected need for global coverage and so computationally efficient Landsat 8 pansharpening. This study adapts and evaluates the established, and relatively computationally inexpensive, Brovey and context adaptive Gram Schmidt component substitution (CS) pansharpening methods for application to the Landsat 8 15 m panchromatic and 30 m red, green, blue, and near-infrared bands. The intensity images used by these CS pansharpening methods are derived as a weighted linear combination …

Conterminous United States Crop Field Size Quantification From Multi-Temporal Landsat Data, Lin Yan Dr., David P. Roy

GSCE Faculty Publications

Agricultural field size is indicative of the degree of agricultural capital investment, mechanization and labor intensity, and it is ecologically important. A recently published automated computational methodology to extract agricultural crop fields from weekly 30 m Web Enabled Landsat data (WELD) time series was refined and applied to a year of Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 7 Enhance Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM +) acquisitions for all of the conterminous United States (CONUS). For the first time, spatially explicit CONUS field size maps and derived information are presented. A total of 4,182,777 fields were extracted with mean and median …

The Global Landsat Archive: Status, Consolidation, And Direction, Michael A. Wulder, Joanne C. White, Thomas R. Loveland, Curtis E. Woodcock, Alan S. Belward, Warren B. Cohen, Eugene A. Fosnight, Jerad Shaw, Jeffrey G. Masek, David P. Roy

GSCE Faculty Publications

New and previously unimaginable Landsat applications have been fostered by a policy change in 2008 that made analysis-ready Landsat data free and open access. Since 1972, Landsat has been collecting images of the Earth, with the early years of the program constrained by onboard satellite and ground systems, as well as limitations across the range of required computing, networking, and storage capabilities. Rather than robust on-satellite storage for transmission via high bandwidth downlink to a centralized storage and distribution facility as with Landsat-8, a network of receiving stations, one operated by the U.S. government, the other operated by a community …

Incorporating Applied Undergraduate Research In Senior To Graduate Level Remote Sensing Courses, Richard Henley, Daniel Unger, David Kulhavy, I-Kuai Hung

Faculty Publications

An Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture (ATCOFA) senior spatial science undergraduate student engaged in a multi-course undergraduate research project to expand his expertise in remote sensing and assess the applied instruction methodology employed within ATCOFA. The project consisted of performing a change detection land-use/land-cover classification for Nacogdoches and Angelina counties in Texas using satellite imagery. The dates for the imagery were spaced approximately ten years apart and consisted of four different acquisitions between 1984 and 2013. The classification procedure followed and expanded upon a series of concrete theoretical remote sensing principles, transforming the four remotely sensed raster images …

The Use Of Remote Sensing Technologies And Models To Study Pollutants In Pdn Region, Suhail Mahmud

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Using a suite of modeling techniques and instrumentation we study the atmospheric pollutants in the PdN Region. The first objective of this work was to measure hemi-spherically integrated, spectrally resolved solar photon flux (actinic flux) between the wavelengths 300 and 700 nm, and use the measured actinic flux to improve air quality simulations. Actinic flux was measured in the PdN region in order to calculate photolysis rate coefficients for different pollutants. The improved photolysis rate coefficients were then integrated into a photochemical air quality model (CAMx) in order to improve air quality forecasting. We present the simulations performed for a …

Land Cover Land Use Change And Soil Organic Carbon Under Climate Variability In The Semi-Arid West African Sahel (1960-2050), Amadou M. Dieye

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Land Cover Land Use (LCLU) change affects land surface processes recognized to influence climate change at local, national and global levels. Soil organic carbon is a key component for the functioning of agro-ecosystems and has a direct effect on the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the soil. The capacity to model and project LCLU change is of considerable interest for mitigation and adaptation measures in response to climate change. A combination of remote sensing analyses, qualitative social survey techniques, and biogeochemical modeling was used to study the relationships between climate change, LCLU change and soil organic carbon in the …

Simulating The Impacts Of Land-Use Land-Cover Changes On Cropland Carbon Fluxes In The Midwest Of The United States, Zhengpeng Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Understanding the major drivers of the cropland carbon fluxes is important for carbon management and greenhouse gas mitigation in agriculture. Past studies found that agricultural land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes, such as changes in cropland production technologies, tillage practices, and planted crop species, could have large impacts on carbon fluxes. However, the impacts remain highly uncertain at regional to global scales. Satellite remote sensing is commonly used to create products with geospatial information on LULC changes. This geospatial information can be integrated into biogeochemical models to simulate the spatial and temporal patterns of carbon fluxes. We used the General Ensemble …

Missing The Trees For The Forest: The Socioecological Significance Of Dispersed Farmland Trees In Northern Ethiopia, Jacob A. Wall, Travis W. Reynolds

Honors Theses

Scattered trees are prominent features in the agricultural landscape of the Ethiopian highlands. The dry Afromontane forests of the Amhara Region in northern Ethiopia have faced centuries of deforestation - the FAO estimates only 3% of the region is forested today. The remaining landscape has been largely converted into agricultural and grazing lands, with the exception of some limited government-protected lands, as well as thousands of small forest fragments left around Orthodox Churches (“church forests”). But while a growing body of scholarship has highlighted the ecological and cultural importance of church forests and other natural forest fragments, the roles of …

Missing The Trees For The Forest: The Socioecological Significance Of Dispersed Farmland Trees In Northern Ethiopia, Jacob A. Wall

Honors Theses

Scattered trees are prominent features in the agricultural landscape of the Ethiopian highlands. The dry Afromontane forests of the Amhara Region in northern Ethiopia have faced centuries of deforestation - the FAO estimates only 3% of the region is forested today. The remaining landscape has been largely converted into agricultural and grazing lands, with the exception of some limited government-protected lands, as well as thousands of small forest fragments left around Orthodox Churches (“church forests”). But while a growing body of scholarship has highlighted the ecological and cultural importance of church forests and other natural forest fragments, the roles of …

Monitoring Global Forest Land-Use And Change, Erik J. Lindquist

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Earth’s forests contain nearly three-fourths of the World’s floral and faunal diversity, function as a large carbon sink capable of mitigating the effects of global climate change, affect local and regional physical and chemical cycles and provide wood and non-wood products. However, humans are now capable of modifying their environment in ways more impactful and at rates faster than at any other time in history. Consistent and comparable estimates of global forest land-use and change are critical for monitoring human impacts on the Earth system. International treaties and reporting requirements aimed at safeguarding the delivery of forest-related ecosystem services depend …

Developing Management Guidelines That Balance Cattle And Timber Production With Ecological Interests In The Black Hills Of South Dakota, Kurt M. Chowanski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Forested lands contribute to the United States (US) economy by providing livestock and timber production. Livestock grazing of forested lands has been widespread throughout the western US since the settlement era, and currently occurs on 51.4 million hectares (ha) representing 16% of all US grazing land and 22% of all US forested land (Nickerson et al. 2011). While livestock grazing and timber harvest are occurring on a substantial amount of forested land, relationships between management practices, tree stocking, timber production, forage production, livestock grazing, wildlife, aesthetics, and ecological integrity are not well documented. Whether considering timber or cattle, finding a …

The Feasibility, Practicality And Uses Of Detecting Crop Water Stress In Southern Ontario Apple Orchards With A Uas, Thomas S. Tiidus Mr.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) are becoming more common place in agricultural sites around the world. While the accuracy of achieving NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) from a UAS is well understood, few studies have attempted to acquire other plant health attributes such as CWSI (Crop Water Stress Index), particularly in horticulture such as apple orchards. In addition, no academic studies up to the time of this writing have explored the perceived usefulness of data obtained from a UAS for the average farmer. This study explored the practicality and feasibility of using UAS for apple orchards in Southern Ontario. This study …

Early Detection Of Mountain Pine Beetle Damage In Ponderosa Pine Forests Of The Black Hills Using Hyperspectral And Worldview-2 Data, Kyle Edward Mullen

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

A leading cause for mortality in the pine forests of western North America, the mountain pine beetle, has impacted over 400,000 acres of ponderosa pine forest in the Black Hills of South Dakota since 1996. Methods aimed at earlier detection, prior to visual manifestation of a mountain pine beetle damage in the tree crown, have not been successful because of the overlap and variability of spectral response between the initial stages of attack (green-attacked) and non-attacked tree crowns. Needle-level reflectance spectra was measured from green-attack and non-attack ponderosa pine trees in early spring following an infestation and analyzed using a …

3d Tool Evaluation And Workflow For An Ecological Approach To Visualizing Ancient Socio-Environmental Landscapes: A Case Study From Copan, Honduras, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Shona Sanford-Long, Jack Kerby-Miller

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Architectural reconstructions are the centerpieces of ancient landscape visualization. When present, vegetation is relegated to the background, resulting in underutilized plant data—an integral data source for archaeological interpretation—thus limiting the capacity to take advantage of 3D visualization for studying ancient socio-environmental dynamics. Our long-term objective is to develop methods of 3D landscape visualization that have value for examining changes in land use and settlement patterns. To begin to work toward this objective, we have (1) identified 3D tools and techniques for vegetation modeling and landscape visualization, (2) evaluated the pros and cons of these tools, (3) investigated biological and ecological …

Mapping And Radiocarbon Dating Archaic Period Monuments: La Alberca Structure Complex, Highland Michoacán, Mexico, Mark F. Steinkraus

All Master's Theses

Ongoing collaborations with the Comunidad Indígena de Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro hold great potential for exploring the origins of sedentary ranked communities that predate others in Mesoamerica by as much as one thousand years. Three carbon samples from the lower buried portions of the Central Structure at La Alberca Complex yield a date range of 7245-6470 cal B.P. The carbon sample laying on an upper tier of the feature yields a date of 4780 cal B.P. These dates suggest that the feature is 7000 to 6000 years old and may have been in use as recently as 5000 to 4000 …

Comparing Unmanned Aerial Systems (Uas) Structure-From-Motion Digital Surface Modeling To Laser Imaging Detection And Ranging (Lidar), Joshua D. Schane

Geography Masters Research Papers

UAS (unmanned-aerial systems) mapping is an emerging technology in spatial science. UAS, more informally referred to as “drones,” are small, radio-controlled or autonomous aerial platforms outfitted with camera sensor systems that can be deployed to fly missions for mapping terrain and structures. With the use of a photogrammetry technique called structure-from-motion, overlapping aerial images can be developed into high-resolution spatial data (< 5-cm). These data are georeferenced by GPS location information assigned to aerial targets which act as ground-control points (GCPs). This research explores the accuracy of the UAS-derived digital surface model (DSM) as it relates to a LIDAR DSM of the same study area in St. Helens, Oregon.

The site that was chosen to be mapped was a large wastewater treatment plant, with surrounding natural areas, residential, and industrial properties. The site was mapped using a small quadcopter-style UAS which was programmed autonomously; the overlapping aerial …