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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed and implemented an algorithm that identifies burned areas in dense time series of Landsat image stacks to produce the Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable (BAECV) products. The algorithm makes use of predictors derived from individual Landsat scenes, lagged reference conditions, and change metrics between the scene and reference conditions. Outputs of the BAECV algorithm consist of pixel-level burn probabilities for each Landsat scene, and annual burn probability, burn classification, and burn date composites. These products were generated for the conterminous United States for 1984 through 2015. These data are also available for download at https://rmgsc.cr.usgs.gov/outgoing/baecv/BAECV_CONUS_v1.1_2017/...
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Effective monitoring and prediction of flood and drought events requires an improved understanding of how and why surface-water expansion and contraction in response to climate varies across space. This paper sought to (1) quantify how interannual patterns of surface-water expansion and contraction vary spatially across the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) and adjacent Northern Prairie (NP) in the United States, and (2) explore how landscape characteristics influence the relationship between climate inputs and surface-water dynamics. Due to differences in glacial history, the PPR and NP show distinct patterns in regards to drainage development and wetland density, together providing a diversity of conditions to examine...
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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed and implemented an algorithm that identifies burned areas in temporally dense time series of Landsat Analysis Ready Data (ARD) scenes to produce the Landsat Burned Area Products. The algorithm uses predictors derived from individual ARD Landsat scenes, lagged reference conditions, and change metrics between the scene and reference conditions. Scene-level products include pixel-level burn probability (BP) and burn classification (BC) images corresponding to each Landsat image in the ARD time series. Annual composite products are also available by summarizing the scene-level products. Prior to generating annual composites, individual scenes that had > 0.010 burned proportion...
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Interpretations of post-fire condition and rates of vegetation recovery can influence management priorities, actions, and perception of latent risks from landslides and floods. In this study, we used the Waldo Canyon fire (2012, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA) as a case study to explore how a time series (2011-2016) of high-resolution images can be used to delineate burn extent and severity, as well as quantify post-fire vegetation recovery. We applied an object-based approach to map burn severity and vegetation recovery using Worldview-2, 3, and QuickBird-2 imagery. The burned area was classified as 51% high, 20% moderate and 29% low burn-severity. Across the burn extent, the shrub cover class showed a rapid recovery,...
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The Upper Missouri River headwaters (UMH) basin (36 400 km2 ) depends on its river corridors to support irrigated agriculture and world-class trout fisheries. We evaluated trends (1984–2016) in riparian wetness, an indicator of the riparian condition, in peak irrigation months (June, July and August) for 158 km2 of riparian area across the basin using the Landsat normalized difference wetness index (NDWI). We found that 8 of the 19 riparian reaches across the basin showed a significant drying trend over this period, including all three basin outlet reaches along the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin rivers. The influence of upstream climate was quantified using per reach random forest regressions. Much of the interannual...
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Global trends in wetland degradation and loss have created an urgency to monitor wetland extent, as well as track the distribution and causes of wetland loss. Satellite imagery can be used to monitor wetlands over time, but few efforts have attempted to distinguish anthropogenic wetland loss from climate-driven variability in wetland extent. We present an approach to concurrently track land cover disturbance and inundation extent across the Mid-Atlantic region, United States, using the Landsat archive in Google Earth Engine. Disturbance was identified as a change in greenness, using a harmonic linear regression approach, or as a change in growing season brightness. Inundation extent was mapped using a modified version...
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Fire history metrics enable rapidly increasing amounts of burned area data to be collapsed into a handful of data layers that can be used efficiently by diverse stakeholders. In this effort, the U.S. Geological Survey's Landsat Burned Area product was used to identify burned area across CONUS over a 40-year period (1984-2023). The Landsat BA product was consolidated into a suite of annual BA products, which in-turn were used to calculate a series of contemporary fire history metrics (30 m resolution). Fire history metrics included: (1) fire frequency (FRQ), (2) time since last burn (TSLB) and (3) year of last burn (YLB), (4) longest fire-free interval (LFFI), and (5) average fire interval length (FIL). All metrics...
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Aquatic features critical to watershed hydrology range widely in size from narrow, shallow streams to large, deep lakes. In this study we evaluated wetland, lake, and river systems across the Prairie Pothole Region to explore where pan-sharpened high-resolution (PSHR) imagery, relative to Landsat imagery, could provide additional data on surface water distribution and movement, missed by Landsat. We used the monthly Global Surface Water (GSW) Landsat product as well as surface water derived from Landsat imagery using a matched filtering algorithm (MF Landsat) to help consider how including partially inundated Landsat pixels as water influenced our findings. The PSHR outputs (and MF Landsat) were able to identify...
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Landscape carbon (C) flux estimates are necessary for assessing the ability of terrestrial ecosystems to buffer further increases in anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Advances in remote sensing have allowed for coarse-scale estimates of gross primary productivity (GPP) (e.g., MODIS 17), yet efforts to assess spatial patterns in respiration lag behind those of GPP. Here, we demonstrate a method to predict growing season soil respiration at a regional scale in a forested ecosystem. We related field measurements (n=144) of growing season soil respiration across subalpine forests in the Southern Rocky Mountains ecoregion to a suite of biophysical predictors with a Random Forest model (30 m pixel size). We...
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Post-fire shifts in vegetation composition will have broad ecological impacts. However, information characterizing post-fire recovery patterns and their drivers are lacking over large spatial extents. In this analysis we used Landsat imagery collected when snow cover (SCS) was present, in combination with growing season (GS) imagery, to distinguish evergreen vegetation from deciduous vegetation. We sought to (1) characterize patterns in the rate of post-fire, dual season Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) across the region, (2) relate remotely sensed patterns to field-measured patterns of re-vegetation, and (3) identify seasonally-specific drivers of post-fire rates of NDVI recovery. Rates of post-fire...
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High-frequency observations of surface water at fine spatial scales are critical to effectively manage aquatic habitat, flood risk and water quality. We developed inundation algorithms for Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 across 12 sites within the conterminous United States (CONUS) covering >536,000 km2 and representing diverse hydrologic and vegetation landscapes. These algorithms were trained on data from 13,412 points spread throughout the 12 sites. Each scene in the 5-year (2017-2021) time series was classified into open water, vegetated water, and non-water at 20 m resolution using variables not only from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2, but also variables derived from topographic and weather datasets. The Sentinel-1 model...
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Wildfires and prescribed fires are frequent but under-mapped across wetlands of the southeastern United States . High annual precipitation supports rapid post-fire recovery of wetland vegetation, while associated cloud cover limits clear-sky observations. In addition, the low burn severity of prescribed fires and spectral confusion between fluctuating water levels and burned areas have resulted in wetland burned area being chronically under-estimated across the region. In this analysis, we first quantify the increase in clear-sky observations by using Sentinel-2 in addition to Landsat 8. We then present an approach using the Sentinel-2 archive (2016-2019) to train a wetland burned area algorithm at 20 m resolution....
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High-frequency observations of surface water at fine spatial scales are critical to effectively manage aquatic habitat, flood risk and water quality. We developed inundation algorithms for Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 across 12 sites within the conterminous United States (CONUS) covering >536,000 km2 and representing diverse hydrologic and vegetation landscapes. These algorithms were trained on data from 13,412 points spread throughout the 12 sites. Each scene in the 5-year (2017-2021) time series was classified into open water, vegetated water, and non-water at 20 m resolution using variables not only from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2, but also variables derived from topographic and weather datasets. The Sentinel-1 model...
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Landsat Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is commonly used to monitor post-fire green-up; however, most studies do not distinguish new growth of conifer from deciduous or herbaceous species, despite potential consequences for local climate, carbon and wildlife. We found that dual season (growing and snow cover) NDVI improved our ability to distinguish conifer tree presence and density. We then examined the post-fire pattern (1984–2017) in Landsat NDVI for fires that occurred a minimum of 20 years ago (1986–1997). Points were classified into four categories depending on whether NDVI, 20 years post-fire, had returned to pre-fire values in only the growing season, only under snow cover, in both seasons...
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Degradation of streams and associated riparian habitat across the Missouri River Headwaters Basin has motivated several stream restoration projects across the watershed. Many of these projects install a series of beaver dam analogues (BDAs) to aggrade incised streams, elevate local water tables, and create natural surface water storage by reconnecting streams with their floodplains. Satellite imagery can provide a spatially continuous mechanism to monitor the effects of these in-stream structures on stream surface area. However, remote sensing-based approaches to map narrow (e.g., <5 m wide) linear features such as streams have been under-developed relative to efforts to map other types of aquatic systems, such...
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Complete and accurate burned area map data are needed to document spatial and temporal patterns of fires, to quantify their drivers, and to assess the impacts on human and natural systems. In this study, we developed the Landsat Burned Area (BA) algorithm, an update from the Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable (BAECV) algorithm. We present the BA algorithm and products, changes relative to the BAECV algorithm and products, and updated validation metrics. We also present spatial and temporal patterns of burned area across the conterminous U.S. and a comparison with other burned area datasets. The BA algorithm identifies burned areas in analysis ready data (ARD) time-series of Landsat imagery from 1984...
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The datasets were generated for the Upper Choptank River Watershed in Maryland and Delaware. Depressions and the total stream network were derived from a lidar DEM collected during April–June 2003 (vertical accuracy root mean square error (RMSE) = 14.3 cm) and March–April 2006 (vertical accuracy RMSE = 18.5 cm) for Maryland (1 m resolution) and April 2007 (vertical accuracy RMSE = 18.5 cm) for Delaware (3 m resolution)). Three Landsat images were used to create a surface-water extent map from Landsat including Landsat-8 images collected on April 4, 2015 (p14r33) and April 11, 2015 (p15r33) and a Landsat-7 ETM+ image collected on April 12, 2015 (p14r33). The datasets were used with other previously published datasets...
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Global wind energy has expanded 5-fold since 2010 and is predicted to expand another 8–10-fold over the next 30 years. Wakes generated by wind turbines can alter downwind microclimates and potentially downwind vegetation. However, the design of past studies has made it difficult to isolate the impact of wake effects on vegetation from land cover change. We used hourly wind data to model wake and non-wake zones around 17 wind facilities across the U.S. and compared remotely-sensed vegetation greenness in wake and non-wake zones before and after construction. We located sampling sites only in the dominant vegetation type and in areas that were not disturbed before or after construction. We found evidence for wake...
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Wildfires and housing development have increased since the 1990s, presenting unique challenges for fire management. However, it is unclear how the relative influences of housing growth and changing wildfire occurrence have contributed to risk to homes. We fit a random forest using weather, land cover, topography, and past fire history to predict burn probabilities and uncertainty intervals. Then, we estimated risk at 1-km resolution and monthly intervals from 1990 through 2019 by combining predicted burn probabilities with housing density across the Southern Rocky Mountains. We used 3 scenarios to evaluate how housing growth and changes in burn probability influenced risk individually and combined (observed, 1990...


    map background search result map search result map Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable products for the conterminous United States (1984 - 2015) Data Release for the validation of the USGS Landsat Burned Area Product across the conterminous U.S. (ver. 2.0, May 2020) Data release of the influence of data characteristics on detecting wetland/stream surface-water connections in the Delmarva Peninsula, Maryland and Delaware Data release for Wetlands inform how climate extremes influence surface water expansion and contraction Data release for the potential role of very high-resolution imagery to characterise lake, wetland and stream systems across the Prairie Pothole Region, United States Data release for Applying high-resolution imagery to evaluate restoration-induced changes in stream condition, Missouri River Headwaters Basin, Montana Data release for Time series of high-resolution images enhances efforts to monitor post-fire condition and recovery, Waldo Canyon fire, Colorado, USA Data release for estimating soil respiration in a subalpine landscape using point, terrain, climate and greenness data Data release for it matters when you measure it: using snow-cover Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to isolate post-fire conifer regeneration Data release for Influence of multi-decadal land use, irrigation practices and climate on riparian corridors across the Upper Missouri River headwaters basin, Montana Data release for tracking rates of post-fire conifer regeneration distinct from deciduous vegetation recovery across the western U.S. Tracking disturbance and inundation to identify wetland loss Wetland burned area extent derived from Sentinel-2 across the southeastern U.S. (2016-2019) Wind turbine wakes can impact down-wind vegetation greenness Changes in wildfire occurrence and risk to homes from 1990 through 2019 in the Southern Rocky Mountains, USA (data release) Contemporary fire history metrics for the conterminous United States (1984-2023) (ver. 3.0, April 2024) Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 based frequency of open and vegetated water across the United States (2017-2021) The Landsat Collection 2 Burned Area Products for the conterminous United States (ver. 2.0, April 2024) Data release for climate change impacts on surface water extents across the central United States Data release for Time series of high-resolution images enhances efforts to monitor post-fire condition and recovery, Waldo Canyon fire, Colorado, USA Data release for Applying high-resolution imagery to evaluate restoration-induced changes in stream condition, Missouri River Headwaters Basin, Montana Data release of the influence of data characteristics on detecting wetland/stream surface-water connections in the Delmarva Peninsula, Maryland and Delaware Data release for Influence of multi-decadal land use, irrigation practices and climate on riparian corridors across the Upper Missouri River headwaters basin, Montana Data release for the potential role of very high-resolution imagery to characterise lake, wetland and stream systems across the Prairie Pothole Region, United States Changes in wildfire occurrence and risk to homes from 1990 through 2019 in the Southern Rocky Mountains, USA (data release) Data release for estimating soil respiration in a subalpine landscape using point, terrain, climate and greenness data Tracking disturbance and inundation to identify wetland loss Wetland burned area extent derived from Sentinel-2 across the southeastern U.S. (2016-2019) Data release for Wetlands inform how climate extremes influence surface water expansion and contraction Data release for it matters when you measure it: using snow-cover Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to isolate post-fire conifer regeneration Data release for climate change impacts on surface water extents across the central United States Data release for tracking rates of post-fire conifer regeneration distinct from deciduous vegetation recovery across the western U.S. Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 based frequency of open and vegetated water across the United States (2017-2021) Data Release for the validation of the USGS Landsat Burned Area Product across the conterminous U.S. (ver. 2.0, May 2020) Wind turbine wakes can impact down-wind vegetation greenness Contemporary fire history metrics for the conterminous United States (1984-2023) (ver. 3.0, April 2024) The Landsat Collection 2 Burned Area Products for the conterminous United States (ver. 2.0, April 2024) Landsat Burned Area Essential Climate Variable products for the conterminous United States (1984 - 2015)