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USGS EROS Center – FY 2011 Accomplishments Report – FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY – v 1.0 1

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center – Fiscal Year 2011 Accomplishment Report Compiled by Becky A. Foster

This report is a desk reference for internal use only. Please do not distribute.


CONTENTS

ACRONYMS .............................................................................................................................. 4

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................... 7

FISCAL YEAR 2011 IN REVIEW ............................................................................................... 7

Science and Applications Activities ....................................................................................... 7

Fire Science ........................................................................................................................... 8

Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity Project Compiles a National Fire Atlas of Over 13,000 Fires Going Back to 1984 .............................................................................................................................. 8 Remote Sensing Support for DOI Burned Area Emergency Response Teams................................... 9 Detailed Historical Mapping of Fire Severity in the Mojave Using Remote Sensing and Field Sampling ............................................................................................................................................. 10

Land Characterization and Trends ........................................................................................12

National Land Cover Database 2006 Released – Project Evolves to Monitor Land Cover Change over Time ............................................................................................................................................ 12 USGS Scientists Completed a National Assessment of 1973 to 2000 Land Use and Land Cover Change ............................................................................................................................................... 15

Land Cover Applications and Global Change ........................................................................18

Monitoring Biodiverse Ecosystems in Senegal – A Wilderness on the Edge .................................... 18 Here Today, Gone Tomorrow – The Curious Case of Disappearing Cheatgrass ............................. 21 Mapping Aboveground Biomass in the Boreal Forests of the Yukon River Basin, Alaska ................ 23 Topographic Processing Service – Developing a Common Resource for Latin America to Derive Products from Restricted Data: SRTM 30 Meter ............................................................................... 24 Climate Change Impacts on Lakes in the Yukon River Basin, Alaska ............................................... 26

Topographic Science, Elevation, and Lidar ...........................................................................28

National Atlas of the United States ..................................................................................................... 28 The Evolution of The National Elevation Dataset: Incorporating Lidar DEM Data into the NED for Scientific and Mapping Applications ................................................................................................... 32

Early Warning, Environmental Monitoring, and Hazards Management ..................................34

U.S. Evapotranspiration Project ......................................................................................................... 34 National Irrigated Lands Mapping – Status and Recent Change ....................................................... 36 USGS Science Supports Early Humanitarian Response to Famine Conditions in East Africa ......... 38

Remote Sensing Activities .....................................................................................................40

Landsat Program ..................................................................................................................41

Landsat Delivers More Than 6,000,000 Scenes ................................................................................ 41 EROS Archive – More History to Learn From .................................................................................... 42

New Missions ........................................................................................................................43

Landsat Data Continuity Mission: Ground System Development Progress ...................................... 44 Land Satellites Data System .............................................................................................................. 47 Landsat Science Team: Improving Landsat Data Quality, Quantity, and Uses ................................ 49


International Cooperator Network: 20th Landsat Technical Working Group – Preparing for December

2012 LDCM (Landsat 8) Launch ........................................................................................................ 52 USGS Moves Forward with Development of Information Products for Terrestrial Monitoring ........... 54

Data Management and Distribution .......................................................................................56

Successfully Moving (eMODIS) from Research to Operations .......................................................... 56 EOS LP DAAC at EROS Expands Data Access Mechanisms in Support of the ASTER and MODIS Land User Community ........................................................................................................................ 58 Cloud Technology Explored ............................................................................................................... 59 Network Augmented to Meet User Needs .......................................................................................... 61 Consolidated Archive and Distribution Data Report: A Monthly ―Consolidated Report" for All Data Managed and Distributed at EROS .................................................................................................... 63

Coordination and Collaboration .............................................................................................71

USGS EROS Supports Record Number of Catastrophic Events ....................................................... 71 USGS Operations and Data Support for Outside Collaborators ........................................................ 73

Center Support Activities .......................................................................................................74 Making Science Visible ...................................................................................................................... 75 Support Service Contracts at the USGS EROS ................................................................................. 76 Computer Room Study Conducted – How much can we plug in before there‘s a problem? ............. 77 Credit Card Transaction Log .............................................................................................................. 78 Access ID Card Control System (a.k.a. Security Card Readers) ....................................................... 79

Selected Research and Technical Publications ....................................................................80 Journal Articles ................................................................................................................................... 80 Books .................................................................................................................................................. 91 Book Chapters .................................................................................................................................... 92 Reports ............................................................................................................................................... 93

USGS Fact Sheets ......................................................................................................................... 93 USGS General Information Products ............................................................................................. 93 USGS Open File Reports ............................................................................................................... 94 USGS Professional Papers ............................................................................................................ 94 USGS Scientific Investigations Maps ............................................................................................. 94 USGS Scientific Investigations Reports ......................................................................................... 95 USGS General Information Products ............................................................................................. 95 Non-USGS Discussion Paper ........................................................................................................ 95

Conference Papers............................................................................................................................. 96 Conference Presentations .................................................................................................................. 97

CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................ 108


Acronyms

APFO Aerial Photography Field Office ASPRS American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing ASTER Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer AVHRR Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer BAER Burned Area Emergency Response BASIS+ Budget and Science Information System Plus BLM Bureau of Land Management C&O Communications and Outreach CAPE Collection Activity Planning Element CCRS Canada Centre for Remote Sensing CEODE Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth (Chinese) CLIRSEN El Centro de Levantamientos Integrados de Recursos Naturales por Sensores Remotos (Ecuadorian Remote Sensing Center) CONAE Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (Argentina Space Commission) CONABIO National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity of Mexico CPIC Capital Planning and Investment Control CCT Credit Card Transaction DCCEE Dept. of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (Australian Government) DEM Digital Elevation Model DLR German Aerospace Center DME Development/Modernization/Enhancement DOI Department of the Interior DPAS Data Processing and Archive System DV&E Data Validation and Exchange ECHO Earth Observing System (EOS) Clearinghouse eMODIS ―e‖ represents ―enhanced,‖ ―expedited,‖ ―expandable‖ MODIS data EMT+ Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus EOS Earth Observing System EOS Earth Observation System EOSDIS EOS Data and Information System EPA Environmental Protection Agency EROS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center ESA European Space Agency Esri Environmental Systems Research Institute ET Evapotranspiration fAPAR fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation FBMS Financial and Business Management System FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency FEWS Famine Early Warning System FEWSNET FEWS Network FY Fiscal Year GA-NEO Geoscience Australia – National Earth Observation


GAM Geographic Analysis and Monitoring GIS Geographic Information System GISTDA Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (Thailand) GloVis Global Visualization Viewer GMRR Ground and Mission Readiness Review GMTED2010 Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 GRT Ground Readiness Test Ha Hectare HDDS Hazards Data Distribution System HUC Hydrologic Unit Code HydroSHEDS global Hydro logical data and maps based on Shuttle Elevation Derivatives at multiple Scales ID Identification INPE Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (Brazilian Space Research) IT Information Technology KACSAT King Abdulaziz City of Science and Technology (Saudi Arabian) LAI Leaf Area Index LAPAN Lembaga Penerbangan dan Antariksa Nasional (Indonesian National Institute of Aeronautics and Space) LDCM Landsat Data Continuity Mission LGAC Landsat Global Archive Consolidation Lidar Light Detection and Ranging LP DAAC Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center LRS Land Remote Sensing LSDS Land Satellites Data System LTA Long Term Archive LTWG Landsat Technical Working Group MDA MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. MIrAD-US MODIS Irrigated Agriculture Data for the U.S. MOC Mission Operations Center MODIS Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer MOR Mission Operations Review MRLC Multi-Resolution Land Characterization MRTWeb MODIS Reprojection Tool (MRT) Web MSS Multispectral Scanner MTBS Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASS National Agricultural Statistics Service NDVI Normalized Difference Vegetation Index NED National Elevation Dataset NLCD National Land Cover Database NLI National Land Imaging NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NPS National Park Service NRCS Natural Resources Conservation Service OLI Operational Land Imager


R&E Research and Education RESTEC Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan REVERB NASA‘s next generation metadata and service discovery tool. REVERB searches against the ECHO metadata clearinghouse which facilitates all data discovery and order processing capabilities. To Reverberate is to "echo back or reecho." RFA Requests for Action RSAC Remote Sensing Applications Center SAN Storage Area Network SANSA South Africa National Space Agency ScanEx ScanEx Research and Development Center (Russian) SGT Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies SRTM Shuttle Radar Topography Mission SSC Global Satellite Management Provider (Sweden) SSEB Simplified Surface Energy Balance TB Terabyte TM Thematic Mapper TIRS Thermal Infrared Scanner TSSC Technical Support Services Contract USAID U.S. Agency for International Development USDA U.S. Department of Agriculture USFWS U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service USFS U.S. Forest Service USGS U.S. Geological Survey WaterSMART Water (Sustain and Manage America's Resources for Tomorrow) WERC Western Ecological Research Center

http://www.echo.nasa.gov/reverb/www.echo.nasa.gov


U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center – Fiscal Year 2011 Accomplishment Report Compiled by Becky Foster

Introduction The Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center is a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) facility focused on providing science and imagery to better understand our Earth. As part of the USGS Climate and Land Use Change (CLU) Mission Area, the EROS Center contributes to the understanding of a changing Earth through research to operations activities that include developing, implementing, and operating remote sensing based terrestrial monitoring capabilities needed to address science and applications objectives at all levels – within the USGS, across the Federal government, and around the world. The EROS multidisciplinary staff uses their unique expertise in remote sensing-based science and technologies to carry out basic and applied research, data acquisition, systems engineering, information access and management, and archive preservation to address the Nation‘s most critical needs. Of particular note is the role of EROS as the primary provider of Landsat data, the longest comprehensive global land Earth observation record ever collected. This desk reference is intended to provide an overview of the scientific and engineering achievements and illustrate the range and scope of the activities and accomplishments at EROS throughout fiscal year (FY) 2011. Additional information concerning the scientific, engineering, and operational achievements can be obtained from the scientific papers and other documents published by EROS staff. Communication with our expanding constituent, customer, and user base is vital to achieving our mission and the success of our projects and activities. To communicate with us or for more information about EROS, contact Janice Nelson [email protected], Communications and Outreach, USGS EROS Center, 47914 252nd Street, Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57198, http://eros.usgs.gov/.

Fiscal Year 2011 in Review Science and Applications Activities The Center‘s science and applications activities include multidisciplinary Earth science research, remote sensing applications development, and generation of associated products such as oral presentations, publications, workshops, databases, and websites. Science and applications activities are aligned with the USGS strategic science goals and priorities set by the Climate and Land Use Change Mission Area.

mailto:[email protected]

http://eros.usgs.gov/


Disciplines and skills represented in science activities at EROS include geography, cartography, geology, soil science, hydrology, biology, forestry, ecology, geochemistry, computer science, applied physics and remote sensing, mathematics, and statistics. Science partners and collaborators include the USGS Climate and Land Use Change Programs and other USGS mission areas and their associated programs, other bureaus and agencies within the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), bureaus and agencies in other departments of the Federal Government, State agencies, tribal governments and universities, non-Government agencies, academic institutions, and international organizations. The EROS research and applications activities take full advantage of the Center‘s extensive national and global archive of remotely-sensed data.

Fire Science The Fire Science Team conducts, applies, leads, and advances fire science by supporting the DOI, other land-management agencies, and their fire management programs with scientifically credible, timely, reliable, and nationally consistent data, and constructive collaboration with other partners. Key accomplishments are given in the following sections. Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity Project Compiles a National Fire Atlas of Over 13,000 Fires Going Back to 1984 Using current and historical Landsat imagery, the Monitoring Trends and Burn Severity (MTBS) project delineates fire perimeters and estimates the severity of fire effects upon the landscape. Since 2005, current and historical fires dating back to 1984 (fig. 1) have been mapped by the USGS EROS and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Remote Sensing Applications Center (RSAC). The burn severity assessments are used to plan mitigation, recovery, and other land management activities; and in research to estimate short- and long-term impacts of fire at local, regional, and national scales. Using fire location information provided by Federal and State agencies, pre- and post-fire Landsat imagery is selected and processed to highlight the changes in vegetation that occurred due to fire. Analysts review the results to generate a fire perimeter and estimate the burn severity (unburned, low, moderate, and high). The imagery, perimeter, resulting burn severity map, and ancillary information are staged at http://mtbs.gov/ for free distribution. Tools are provided at the website to derive burn severity statistics for individual fires as well as fires grouped by user-defined criteria. Over 13,000 fires from 1984 to 2009 from all 50 states have been mapped. Current efforts are focused on using other satellite resources to identify undocumented fires.

http://mtbs.gov/


These data form the foundation of current research and analyses to investigate and summarize regional and national trends in fire occurrence and severity. The USFS and USGS combined their resources to undertake and conclude a massive task to assemble a national archive of baseline fire information. This information will be supplemented as each agency makes preparations to map fires from 2010 and beyond. For further information, contact Stephen Howard, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 1. The graphic illustrates the location of over 13,000 fires mapped by the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity project since 2005. Remote Sensing Support for DOI Burned Area Emergency Response Teams Since 2003, USGS EROS fire science staff have worked jointly with the USFS RSAC staff to map all significant wildfires on DOI and Forest Service managed lands primarily to satisfy burn severity mapping requirements of Burn Area Emergency Response (BAER) Teams. EROS receives national level funding from DOI fire management programs to support this ongoing activity. EROS rapidly processes Landsat and other satellite imagery enabling the timely generation of DOI and USFS map products (fig. 2), generally in less than 2 days after fire containment. Historically, 7 to 8 years ago, BAER soil burn severity mapping was done by sketch mapping severity patterns on topographic maps, perhaps with the aid of



a digitized fire perimeter. Today, burn severity mapping derived using satellite imagery has replaced the manual method for BAER teams, except in cases where timely imagery is not available due to clouds, smoke, and missed acquisitions. As of 2011, USGS EROS and USFS RSAC have mapped over 1,000 wildfires representing over 35 million burned acres in support of BAER and other local DOI and USFS land managers. Recently, USGS EROS has been asked to support international emergency fire incidents. In 2009, USGS EROS supported U.S. BAER teams deployed to Australia and mapped over 700,000 acres over a period of 2 weeks. Also in 2009, USGS EROS staff assisted fire managers in Greece and the Democratic Republic of Georgia. For further information, contact Randy McKinley, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 2. Landsat image (left) and soil burn severity map (right) for the Pains Bay fire located near Manns Harbor, North Carolina. This fire impacted over 45,000 acres and burned from approximately early May to late July 2011. The fire was mapped by EROS staff four times over the course of the incident to provide local fire managers with timely burn information. Within the severity map, dark green is non-burn, light blue is low severity, yellow is moderate severity, and red is high severity. Detailed Historical Mapping of Fire Severity in the Mojave Using Remote Sensing and Field Sampling

In 2011, the USGS EROS Center‘s fire science staff completed the mapping of 1972 to 2007 historical wildfires in Lincoln and Clark counties of Nevada using remote sensing techniques. A final report titled ―Fire History of Southern Nevada‖ was generated in cooperation with USGS Western Ecological Research Center (WERC) and submitted for USGS review. The report is anticipated to be submitted to BLM in late FY 2011 or



early in FY 2012. This work resulted in the documentation of historical wildfire information related to burn perimeters, severity, frequency, and post fire vegetation characteristics useful to local, State, and Federal land managers in Nevada. This collaborative effort including USGS EROS, USGS WERC and the BLM Ely District Office was expanded and extended beyond the original time line due primarily to the opportunity to leverage USGS Geographic Analysis and Monitoring (GAM) funding with two research grants, i.e., Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program and Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act. In FY 2010, the project area was expanded to include Lincoln and Clark counties in Nevada and then expanded again to the full Mojave bioregion (fig. 3). In FY 2012, USGS EROS staff will complete the historical (1972 to 2007) wildfire database for the full Mojave study area including several military reservations. Additionally, the minimum fire size will be reduced from 1,000 to approximately 100 acres. The mapping of additional smaller fires will allow for more statistically robust field sampling of current vegetation and seedbank characteristics. Field sampling conducted by USGS WERC has and will continue to be conducted in a manner designed to capture characteristics representative of historical areas impacted by fire at low, moderate, and high burn severity levels. This project is expected to result in a better understanding of both effectiveness of treatments and effects of fires in the Mojave Desert ecosystem. For further information, contact Randy McKinley, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 3. Preliminary historical burn mapping for the Mojave bioregion located in California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. Fire areas are composited for the period 1972 to 2007 and colored red. The Mojave bioregion boundary is dark brown, roads are light grey, and state boundaries are black.



Land Characterization and Trends The Land Characterization and Trends Team develops solutions for characterizing land cover at multiple temporal and spatial scales that enable subsequent analysis, monitoring, forecasting, and reporting of land cover processes. Key accomplishments are given in the following sections. National Land Cover Database 2006 Released – Project Evolves to Monitor Land Cover Change over Time

The USGS, working in partnership with the interagency Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium released the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2006 in February 2011. The completion of NLCD 2006 provides an update of NLCD 2001 and quantifies land cover and urban imperviousness change between 2001 and 2006. NLCD products offer an effective tool for recognizing and evaluating types of land cover changes, their distribution and patterns, and potential consequences regarding land use and land condition throughout the United States. The emphasis of the NLCD project evolved to include monitoring as well as mapping to better address emerging issues of sustainable use that are faced by the MRLC agencies and the well-established user community. Contained within the model of sustainability are assumptions of inventory of the Earth‘s natural resources and changes in those resources. NLCD 2006 products supply multiple attributes for each pixel supporting a system for national and regional scale resource analysis and monitoring. Within the ―cyber‖ confines of a single pixel, users of NLCD 2006 can identify the type of land cover, the percentage of imperviousness, and the status of land cover and imperviousness change from 2001 to 2006 (fig 4). An extensive MRLC scene library archives more than 20,000 Landsat 5 and 7 scenes that have been processed to rigorous project standards. These scenes are prepared as source data for spectral change analysis and classification. Innovative methodologies developed by the NLCD project research strategy team use customized modeling algorithms to extract land cover change, estimate percent developed imperviousness, and characterize land cover from the remotely sensed Landsat images. NLCD 2001 (Version 2.0) and NLCD 2006 land cover and imperviousness products were precisely aligned so that land cover and impervious change over time could be established from direct comparison of equivalent database layers. Analysis of the NLCD 2006 Land Cover Change product indicates that less than 2 percent of the land cover mapped as changed between 2001 and 2006. A significant portion of the land cover change was concentrated in the southeastern United States in areas where the forest harvest cycle (fig. 5) had a significant impact on the landscape. Changes in imperviousness were analyzed using the NLCD 2001/2006 Percent Developed Impervious Change supplementary layer. Impervious surface area increased by slightly more than 4 percent and was spatially concentrated around existing urban areas where


new imperviousness formed a noticeable halo pattern. Land cover change for the conterminous United States between 2001 and 2006 is presented in figure 6. NLCD 2006 is an impressive resource. As the second wall-to-wall geospatial database with a consistent national scale and land cover legend, it provides vital information about land cover change to help guide resource managers and policy makers toward responsible stewardship of public lands. Data provided by NLCD 2006 products addresses emerging issues such as sustaining essential ecosystem services, monitoring environmental quality, critical habitat information, and more. Many Federal agencies are contributing members to the MRLC consortium, including the USGS, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and the Office of Surface Mining. All NLCD data products are available for download at no charge to the public from the MRLC Website at http://www.mrlc.gov/. For further information contact Collin Homer, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 4. The National Land Cover Database 2006 is the latest 30 meter, seamless, wall-to-wall, geospatial database for the conterminous United States. Published in February 2011, the dataset contains 16 classes of land cover.

http://www.mrlc.gov/



Figure 5. The National Land Cover Database 2006 land cover change near Okefenokee National Wildlife refuge, Florida, illustrates a classic forest harvest cycle change pattern.


Figure 6. Land cover change from 2001 to 2006 by class showing 2001 relative loss (blue bar), 2006 relative gain (red bar), and net change (black bar) across the conterminous United States. Unchanged areas are not included in this chart. Change values are in square kilometers. USGS Scientists Completed a National Assessment of 1973 to 2000 Land Use and Land Cover Change The USGS Land Cover Trends project completed a comprehensive ecoregional based assessment of land use and land cover change for the United States. The assessment was conducted to improve the understanding of the geographic variability and characteristics of 1973-2000 United States land cover change and for providing a scientific foundation for assessing the environmental consequences of past, present, and future land change. The Land Cover Trends project was designed to contribute to the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and to the USGS Global Change Science Strategy by contributing important historical and baseline data. The research most directly addresses Goal 3, ―improve understanding of land-use and land-cover changes: rates, causes, and consequences‖ by providing a national assessment of land use and land cover changes at 5-year intervals, analyzing the key multi-scale processes and dynamics of land


change and the interactions with climate and other biophysical factors, and by analyzing the regional and national scale drivers of land change. The project used a statistical sampling approach and post-classification comparisons of land use and land cover to estimate change. Change was estimated on an ecoregion-by-ecoregion basis using a stratified sample of blocks randomly selected within 84 EPA Level 3 ecoregions. Landsat imagery was used to interpret and map the land use and land cover. The classification system that was used consisted of 11 general land use/cover classes (i.e., Water, Developed, Mechanically Disturbed, Mining, Barren, Forest, Grassland/Shrubland, Agriculture, Wetland, Nonmechanically Disturbed, Ice and Snow). The resulting land cover data for each sample block was used to determine change for 4 temporal periods and used to generate change estimates for the entire ecoregion. Between 1973 and 2000, approximately 67 x 105 hectare (ha), or 7.5 percent of the land area of the conterminous United States, changed at least one time (fig. 7). The amount of land area experiencing change is increasing and went from 17.8 x 105 ha between 1973 and 1980, to 19.4 x 105 ha between 1980 and 1986, to 28.4 x 105 ha between 1986 and 1992, and to 31.4 x 105 ha between 1992 and 2000. The geographic variability of land use land cover change across the U.S. was significant with high amounts of change (greater than 20 percent of the ecoregion area) in the forested regions of the Northwest, South, and Southeast, to very low amounts (less than 2 percent of the ecoregion area) in arid and semi-arid regions of the Southwest and Central United States. In 1973, natural land covers (i.e., water, barren, forest, grassland/shrubland, wetland, snow/ice) accounted for 69.3 percent of the U.S. land surface and anthropogenic land uses (i.e., developed, mining, agriculture) accounted for 30.2 percent. Transitional lands (i.e., mechanically disturbed and nonmechanically disturbed land) accounted for 0.5 percent of the land area. By 1986, anthropogenic land uses increased by more than 4.1 x 105 ha and transitional lands increased by 1.7 x 105 ha while natural land covers declined by 5.8 x 105 ha. Between 1986 and 1992, this pattern was reversed as anthropogenic land use declined by 5.3 x 105 ha, while natural land covers and transitional lands increased (3.3 x 105 ha and 1.9 x 105 ha, respectively). From 1992 to 2000, natural land covers once again experienced sharp declines (2.4 x 105 ha) although this time primarily as the result of forest harvesting. Transitional lands increased by 2.1 x 105 ha while anthropogenic land uses increased by only 0.3 x 105 ha. Key findings indicate that the rates and processes of land change vary depending on the interactions between socioeconomic processes and environmental factors such as climate, water resources, and land quality. Results show that there is no single profile of U.S. land use and land cover change. Numerous different, and often complex, interactions between socioeconomic drivers and biophysical characteristics have produced widespread ecoregional variability in the rates, total extent, and types of change. The highest changing ecoregions, generally located in the west and south,


occurred in regions with abundant resources and established settlement and infrastructure. These areas are associated with intensive forestry practices and competing demands for agriculture and developed land uses. Key regional trends and drivers emerged, as well as singular events and actions that caused non-linear pulses of change. For example, federal policies, such as Conservation Reserve Program and the Northwest Forest Plan, had large and wide-spread effects on the rates and types of land use and land cover changes occurring at ecoregion and national scales, often times reversing historic and established land use trajectories. Forest cover was also shown to be declining. This result differs from assumptions of continued forest expansion caused by reforestation of pasture and agricultural lands. These results suggest that in many forested ecoregions forest cover was declining due to a mix of urban growth and development, forest harvesting, clearing for agriculture and mining activities, fire, and other natural disturbance. The results provide useful, if not essential information for understanding climate change, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, fragmentation, ecosystem health, and hydrologic processes. The study provides a link to the human system that is needed by scientists, communities, and land and resource managers seeking to understand and manage a changing landscape. For further information, visit the Land Cover Trends Project website: http://landcovertrends.usgs.gov or contact William Acevedo, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 7. Overall spatial change from 1973 to 2000 for all 84 EPA Level 3 ecoregions in the conterminous United States.

http://landcovertrends.usgs.gov/



Land Cover Applications and Global Change The Land Cover Applications and Global Change Team integrates remote sensing resources with simulation models of natural and managed ecosystems to understand environmental change across landscape units, ecological systems, and multitemporal/spatial scales in support of a sustainable Earth. Key accomplishments are given in the following sections. Monitoring Biodiverse Ecosystems in Senegal – A Wilderness on the Edge USGS geographers are working with foresters, ecologists, and wildlife specialists in Senegal to map and monitor landscapes in the country‘s most diverse and pristine region. The focus is on southeastern Senegal – a region of about 25,000 square kilometers (about the size of Vermont) – now on the verge of momentous changes that threaten the existence of its wildlife and ecosystem. This remote corner of Senegal, with its low human population and high biodiversity (nearly half the region lies within the Niokolo Koba National Park), has largely been ignored by development – until now. It is facing a ―game changer‖ – the onset of a gold rush with numerous international mining companies already prospecting and extracting gold. With it comes an influx of people from across the region, the need to clear more land for agriculture, and the opening of a major highway. Existing land cover and vegetation maps of southeastern Senegal provide no more than a general picture of this complex environment. The USGS team and counterparts from the Senegal Forest Department, the Centre de Suivi Ecologique, and the Parks Department are putting the final touches on a land cover map (fig. 8), to be published in early 2012, that will provide considerably more detail – both thematic and spatial (the map will be published at 1:200,000 scale). Features as small as one-half hectare appear on the map, such as farmer‘s fields and seasonal ponds. They are also using geographic information system (GIS) technology to create additional thematic layers including human habitation, gold mining concessions, protected areas, wildlife corridors, critical habitats, and chimpanzee population. The team will distribute the map widely and promote its use for many applications, ranging from local land use planning, to park management and ecotourism, to chimpanzee conservation. Mapping the diversity of land cover types in a region of complex geology, geomorphology, and soils proved very challenging. The team relied primarily on Landsat and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) multi-date satellite imagery. Automated approaches such as spectral classification and segmentation were attempted, but the results did not correlate well with reality, given the extreme heterogeneity of landscapes. They settled on a visual interpretation approach, with numerous supporting layers of information including a 30-meter digital elevation model, hundreds of aerial photographs acquired by the USGS team during an earlier survey (fig. 9), U.S. commercial satellite images, and ground data from over 50 field sites.


Preliminary versions of the map and its thematic layers are already generating interest. Primatologists from Iowa State University, for example, have used the map to show the relationship between the known distribution patterns of the West African chimpanzee and its range of habitat types. The maps also provide considerable detail on the locations and types of human disturbance (e.g., cultivation, gold mining) and their spatial relationships to chimpanzee populations. There is much concern that chimpanzees and their habitats are declining. The savanna chimpanzees of Senegal exhibit unique cultural behaviors not seen in other chimpanzee populations in Africa, including using caves, soaking in pools of water, and hunting mammals with tools. The USGS team collaborated with the Iowa State research team on mapping habitat types important to these apes (fig. 10), and on identifying areas likely to contain as yet undiscovered social groups. A major purpose of the map is to increase awareness of the great diversity and value of Senegal‘s remaining natural landscapes in the southeast – its riverine wetlands, gallery forests, natural grasslands and woodlands. It also provides a detailed picture of increasing human activity in one of the more remote and relatively untouched corners of West Africa. The map will serve as a baseline to characterize the early stages of the present gold rush, providing valuable information to Senegalese authorities who hope to find the right balance between economic development and environmental protection. The USGS team and its counterparts from the Senegal Forest Department, the Centre de Suivi Ecologique, and the Senegal Parks Department have been working in partnership with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) since 1987 to provide scientific analysis based on remote sensing, environmental modeling, and GIS technologies to land applications in Senegal, across Africa, and in other parts of the world. For further information, contact Gray Tappan, USGS EROS, [email protected].



Figure 8. A close-up of part of the new land cover map of southeastern Senegal, 1:200,000 scale. Features as small as 0.5 hectare are mapped, including cultivated fields (yellow). Ninety-seven percent of this region remains relatively untouched by human land uses. Besides a printed map, users will be provided with a digital version with interactive layers including human presence, gold mining concessions, protected areas, wildlife corridors, critical habitats, and chimpanzee population.

Figure 9. The mapping team made considerable use of vertical and oblique format aerial photographs acquired by the USGS team during an earlier survey of southeastern Senegal. In this view, several distinct land cover types are visible, including a wetland (center), open woodlands (left and right sides), and a riparian forest along the Gambia River.


Figure 10. The USGS and Senegalese team worked with primatologists researching chimpanzee behavior and habitat requirements. Habitat types critical to chimpanzees were specifically mapped, including gallery forests (dense corridor of trees, background) that provide food and shelter during the hot dry season, and natural grasslands associated with laterite soils (foreground, dry season). Here Today, Gone Tomorrow – The Curious Case of Disappearing Cheatgrass

Invasive species alter ecosystems, causing damage that may never be reversed. In rangelands of the Intermountain West, cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) has been a dominant invasive species for decades. It has been estimated to cover more than 10 million acres in the Great Basin; however, in the last decade a new phenomenon has been observed, i.e., cheatgrass absence in previously invaded areas during years with adequate precipitation. The cheatgrass dieoff concerns land managers, scientists, and policy makers because dieoff sites can experience loss of forage, new weed species invasion, accelerated soil erosion, and other land degradation. The cause(s) of cheatgrass dieoff is unknown, but a first step in discovering its cause(s) and current extent could be to identify and interpret cheatgrass dynamics, both spatially and temporally, in dieoff and non-dieoff areas. To accomplish this, USGS scientists integrated satellite image archive and site characteristic data to develop ecological performance models to monitor the absence, presence, and productivity of cheatgrass through time. With BLM partnership and support, USGS scientists conducted a pilot study to map estimated cheatgrass extents, productivity, and dieoffs near Winnemucca, Nevada. Data from the study supports the BLM Regional Ecological Landscape Monitoring program by identifying anomalous rangeland conditions and delivering consistent, synoptic, ready-to-use products. Four key accomplishments for FY 2011 were:


1. Development of two time-series map products (2000-2010) – one estimated

cheatgrass extents and productivity, and the other estimated cheatgrass dieoff areas.

2. Validation of technique to identify dieoffs. Dieoff areas provided by the BLM match well with mapped dieoff areas in the pilot area (fig. 11).

3. Delivery of an oral presentation at the 2011 Society for Range Management

meetings.

4. Draft of a manuscript entitled ―Using eMODIS to monitor cheatgrass extents and productivity in the Great Basin and compare to site-specific variables.‖

For further information, contact Bruce Wylie, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 11. Illustration shows 2010 Bureau of Land Management dieoff polygons overlaid on the 2010 cheatgrass performance map. Red colors indicate areas of potential cheatgrass dieoff. Overall, red colors populated almost 60 percent of the area inside polygons but only 2.5 percent of the area outside polygons.



Mapping Aboveground Biomass in the Boreal Forests of the Yukon River Basin, Alaska Quantification of aboveground biomass in Alaska‘s boreal forests is essential to accurately evaluate terrestrial carbon stocks and dynamics in northern high-latitude ecosystems. However, regional aboveground biomass datasets with spatially detailed information are not available for this extensive and remote area. The USGS Climate Effects Network program aimed to map aboveground biomass at 30-meter resolution for the boreal forests in the Yukon River Basin of Alaska using recent satellite data and ground measurements. The USGS scientists and their collaborators collected field data in the Yukon River Basin from the years 2008 to 2010. Ground measurements included several parameters for trees and shrubs, for example, diameter at breast height and basal diameter, which were converted to plot-level aboveground biomass using empirical equations. The research team acquired moderate resolution (30 meter) satellite data (Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus) to constitute the database for estimating regional aboveground biomass. In 2009, the USGS scientists acquired the airborne-based light detection and ranging (lidar) data for two areas in the central basin. They calculated the vegetation height based on the lidar data that detected the distance from bare-earth surface and top of canopy to the lidar sensors. They created statistical models that included the input datasets of field-observed aboveground biomass and satellite observations such as land surface reflectance, temperature, and vegetation indices. The statistical model was applied to the satellite images to generate a 30-meter aboveground biomass map for the boreal forests in the Yukon River Basin. Figure 12 shows an example of the aboveground biomass estimates in the Yukon Flats ecosystem located in the central basin. Validation of the Landsat-derived aboveground biomass using the lidar dataset indicated a significant correlation between the biomass estimates and canopy height. The production of a basin-wide boreal forest biomass dataset will provide an important biophysical parameter for the modeling and investigation of Alaska‘s ecosystems. For further information, contact Bruce Wylie, USGS EROS, [email protected].



Figure 12. Map of the 30-meter resolution aboveground biomass estimation for the Yukon Flats ecoregion. Topographic Processing Service – Developing a Common Resource for Latin America to Derive Products from Restricted Data: SRTM 30 Meter

To broaden the access to the restricted Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)

data, the USGS and the Latin American Development Bank, Corporación Andina de

Fomento (also known as, CAF) developed and released a new tool, the Topographic Processing Service (TPS) (http://lca.usgs.gov/lca/tps/). The TPS allows access to 1-arc-second (30-meter) digital elevation model (DEM) derivative products for download. The service processes the requests dynamically, allowing users to specify parameters for their products and get results that meet their requirements. Current derivative products available for Latin America are aspect, elevation classification, elevation profiles, shaded relief, slope and slope classification, and a viewshed analysis application (fig. 13). In addition to these products, the USGS has developed a hydropower contour extraction tool for the State of Sao Paulo in Brazil, allowing users to extract 2-meter interval contours around drainage areas with hydropower potential. The TPS is not limited to providing the products for the SRTM 1-arc-second DEM; users can request that the products be produced from several other DEM data sources, such

http://lca.usgs.gov/lca/tps/


as HydroSHEDS SRTM 3 arc-second DEM (USGS, 2008) and USGS Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 (GMTED2010; Danielson and Gesch, 2011). The true benefit of the TPS is not the products it provides, but the systems architecture that produces the products. Using the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) ArcGIS Server, the USGS is able to develop a service that can adapt to the projects‘ requirements dynamically. For example, the USGS used the existing TPS architecture and ancillary spatial data developed during its low-head hydropower analysis activities to effectively implement a contour extraction tool for Sao Paulo State. In related activities, the USGS has continued the development of the Rapid Land Cover Mapper to assist developing regions build consistent time series land cover datasets to enhance their spatial data infrastructure (http://lca.usgs.gov/lca/rlcm/). For further information, contact Matthew Cushing, USGS EROS, [email protected]. References include: Danielson, J.J., and Gesch, D.B., 2011, Global multi-resolution terrain elevation data 2010 (GMTED2010): U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2011–1073, 26 p., http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/ofr20111073. NASA, 2005, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission: Project status. http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/p_status.htm (Version 06 August 2008). USGS, 2008, HydroSHEDS: Data layers and availability, http://hydrosheds.cr.usgs.gov/hydro.php (version 06 August 2008).

http://lca.usgs.gov/lca/rlcm/


http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/ofr20111073

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/p_status.htm

http://hydrosheds.cr.usgs.gov/hydro.php


Figure 13. Composite image of South America illustrates the Topographic Processing Service‘s available digital elevation model derivative products. Climate Change Impacts on Lakes in the Yukon River Basin, Alaska The USGS Climate Effects Network was a collaborative program with interest in identifying, detecting, and monitoring landscape changes. After scientists with this program identified, understood, and anticipated the mechanisms and effects of change, they would provide management and policy makers with needed information. One of the primary areas affected by climate warming is central Alaska. In this area, many large lakes are drying and some are completely disappearing from the landscape. Using remotely sensed satellite data from the 1970s to present, an approach was developed to look at the lake changes and assess whether the changes were permanent. The satellite data examined contained over 15,000 water bodies. After comparing the size of lakes at multiple dates between the 1970s and 2009, scientists found that most of the lakes examined may have increased or decreased during the period but did not appear to have significant long-term change. As indicated

http://lca.usgs.gov/lca/tps/images/overview_image2.jpg


in figure 14, less than 10 percent of lakes (in red) had significant drying while a smaller percent (in blue) significantly grew in size. They also found that most of the significant changes were occurring in lakes that were between 10 hectares and 100 hectares in size. Although the Climate Effects Network program is no longer supported by USGS, this work will be funded in the future through the USGS Ecosystems program in collaboration with the USFWS. Future research will determine how precipitation, temperature, fire, geology, and permafrost changes influenced lake size over the last 30 years and how a changing climate will influence whether more lakes and the species that depend on them for survival will vanish in the future. For further information, contact Jennifer Rover, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 14. Image indicates trends for lake extents over a 30-year period (1979 to 2009). Drying lakes that became significantly smaller are red while lakes that were significantly larger are blue. Lakes that were stable between 1979 and 2009 have no color.



Topographic Science, Elevation, and Lidar The Topographic Science, Elevation, and Lidar Team establishes partnerships and conducts research, technique development, dataset development, and applications focused on the study of the topographic land surface. Key accomplishments are given in the following sections. National Atlas of the United States

The National Atlas of the United States produces maps, datasets, and geographic information at regional and national scales for use by government agencies, mapping professionals, and the public. The project is funded by the USGS National Geospatial program under Core Science Systems and is managed by Jay Donnelly in Reston, Virginia. From the body of work undertaken by the National Atlas project at EROS in FY 2011, three accomplishments have been highlighted that advanced the mission of the National Atlas and attracted special interest from Atlas customers:

1. A new National Atlas printed map of land cover was published in spring 2011 (fig. 15). The map is based on the NLCD 2001 and was produced at a scale of 1:5,000,000. Copies of the map were distributed at the NACIS (North American Cartographic Information Society) 2011 conference in October 2011, and John Hutchinson presented a paper on a masking technique developed for the map. The map is also available for sale at the USGS map store (http://store.usgs.gov) under Product Number 246009.

2. National Atlas staff at EROS completed the cartographic review of a new

waterbodies and wetlands dataset that will be part of the million-scale base map for new National Atlas development. The new base map represents a significant addition to the cartographic infrastructure of the United States (fig. 16). A total of 16,900 lakes and 15,500 wetlands were reviewed, and comments passed to Atlas staff at the National Geospatial Technical Operations Center in Rolla, Missouri.

3. National Atlas contract staff added 37 new sites to the Set of Topographic Maps Illustrating Physiographic Features, a dynamic map featured on the National Atlas Web site at http://nationalatlas.gov/100topos/index.html. This dynamic map is a reinvention of a venerable USGS product of the same name, originally distributed as a set of paper maps. The new product adds aerial photos and shaded relief layers to scanned topographic maps and information about physiographic features that can be seen in specific areas. The example shown is for Maverick Springs, Wyoming, one of the 45 total sites now available (fig. 17-19).

http://store.usgs.gov/

http://nationalatlas.gov/100topos/index.html


The National Atlas project at EROS supplies the National Atlas with cartographic expertise, map design and production, and a range of other contributions in support of the National Atlas‘s responsibility as a primary producer and maintainer of medium-to-small scale frameworks and thematic datasets, and of geographic information for the nation. For further information, contact John Hutchinson, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 15. Land cover map, published by the National Atlas in 2011.



Figure 16. Cartographic review was completed on 1:1,000,000-scale waterbodies and wetlands.

Figure 17. Set of 100 layer: topographic map, shaded relief edition, supplied by the USGS Historical Topographic Map collection.


Figure 18. Set of 100 layer: 2009 air photo.

Figure 19. Set of 100 layer: color shaded relief, generated from the National Elevation Dataset.


The Evolution of The National Elevation Dataset: Incorporating Lidar DEM Data into the NED for Scientific and Mapping Applications

The National Elevation Dataset (NED) is the primary elevation data product produced and distributed by the USGS in partnership with the National Geospatial Program. The NED provides seamless raster elevation data of the conterminous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and the island territories, and is derived from diverse source data that are processed to a specification with a consistent resolution, coordinate system, elevation units, and horizontal and vertical datums. The NED is the logical result of the maturation of the long-standing USGS elevation program, and serves as the elevation layer of The National Map. The NED provides elevation information for earth science studies and mapping applications in the United States, and is available nationally at grid spacings of 1-arc-second (~30 meter) for the conterminous United States, and 1/3- and 1/9-arc-second (~10 meter and 3 meter respectively) for parts of the United States. In past years, the USGS elevation program concentrated on production of standard 10-meter DEMs developed through cartographic contours and mapped hydrography to improve the resolution and vertical accuracy of the NED. However, more recently, lidar data, collected from a variety of providers including Federal, State, local governments, and the private sector, have become the primary source data of the NED. In FY 2011, the incorporation of high-quality lidar DEMS into the NED resulted in an additional 140,611 square miles of high-resolution, high-vertical accuracy bare-earth elevation data (fig.20). The multi-resolution, increased vertical accuracy NED is revised bi-monthly to integrate newly available and improved elevation source data. As lidar DEMs are incorporated into the 1/9-arc-second NED, they are also evaluated as source data to revise the 1- and 1/3-arc-second NED layers. Many of the higher resolution datasets were used as source data for the lower resolution NED layers. This allows all the layers of the NED collection to benefit from the high-resolution and increased vertical accuracy of lidar DEMs. In FY 2011, 118,358 square miles of high-resolution data were incorporated into the NED 1- and 1/3-arc-second data layers. The October 2011 update of the multi-resolution, increased vertical accuracy NED marked the 62nd update of the NED bi-monthly revisions since June 2000 (fig. 21). Although incorporation of lidar DEMs into the NED is the priority, the remaining 30-meter source data, where no lidar data are available, continue to be improved upon. The standard 10-meter DEM production from topographic maps is being used to close this gap. By the end of FY 2012, the source data of the conterminous NED multi-resolution layers are projected to be of 10-meter or better resolution. This activity supports contour generation and hydrographic integration. In FY 2011, 84,198 square miles were added to the NED 1- and 1/3-arc-second layers by standard 10-meter DEM production. Several lidar workshops, presentations, elevation technical workshops and panel discussions were led in FY 2011 in support of the lidar specification, lidar processing,


and status of lidar datasets destined for the NED collection. The NED team is always looking for new and better ways to provide scientists and resource manager with the best available science-ready digital elevation data to support global change research, hydrologic modeling, resource monitoring, mapping and visualization, and many other applications. For further information, contact Gayla Evans, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 20. U.S. Geological Survey‘s National Elevation Dataset high resolution elevation inventory and status.



Figure 21. U.S. Geological Survey‘s National Elevation Dataset, October 2011 release. Early Warning, Environmental Monitoring, and Hazards Management The Early Warning, Environmental Monitoring, and Hazards Mitigation Team conducts research on and implements new approaches for monitoring environmental hazards and mitigating their impact through creative applications of geographic analysis and modeling of Earth processes. Key accomplishments are given in the following sections. U.S. Evapotranspiration Project The Evapotranspiration (ET) project at the USGS EROS Center covers diverse geographic areas around the world. The USGS EROS developed the Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEB) model to estimate landscape ET for various applications. Since ET is a critical component of the hydrologic cycle and the most difficult to measure, remote sensing-based techniques such as the SSEB have become very important. For early warning applications, ET provides information on crop


performance and drought monitoring. For hydrological applications, ET is used to estimate groundwater recharge and withdrawal rates. Water management personnel use ET information for estimating irrigation water use and need. The SSEB ET model was run using a combination of moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer data sets (land surface temperature, normalized difference vegetation index, and albedo) and weather data sets such as radiation, air temperature, wind speed, relative humidity and air pressure, for the continental U.S. and Africa. New operational drought monitoring products have been developed for both the continental United States and Africa. Products can be accessed from these sites:

United States (http://earlywarning.usgs.gov/usewem/eta_energy.php)

Africa (http://earlywarning.usgs.gov/fews/africa/index.php) Figure 22 shows the seasonal ET anomaly for the current 2011 year (April-September). Particularly the severity and extent of the drought in the Southern Great Plains is depicted clearly with up to less than 50 percent of ―normal.‖ The United States ET project was funded by the USGS Groundwater Resources program in collaboration with various water science centers such as the California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Washington Water Science Centers. The Northeast Africa ET project was funded by the Famine Early Warning System Network of USAID. With new funding from the USGS WaterSMART project, work has started in the Colorado River basin to produce a proof of concept water balance characterization at the HUC-8 level (8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code). The joint use of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Landsat is also being evaluated. Furthermore, monthly ET gridded datasets have been delivered to the partner water science centers for the period between 2000 and 2009. For further information, contact Gabriel Senay, USGS EROS, [email protected].

http://earlywarning.usgs.gov/usewem/eta_energy.php

http://earlywarning.usgs.gov/fews/africa/index.php



Figure 22. Illustration shows the seasonal ET anomaly for the current 2011 year (April-September). Particularly the severity and extent of the drought in the southern Great Plains is depicted clearly with up to less than 50 percent of ―normal.‖ National Irrigated Lands Mapping – Status and Recent Change

Scientists from the USGS EROS Center have developed a consistent methodology to rapidly assess irrigation change wall-to-wall across the conterminous United States. Changes in irrigation extent and related water use may be associated with a number of factors including drought severity, access to water supply, and water costs. The methods, utilizing a geospatial modeling framework, integrate irrigation statistics with remotely sensed parameters describing vegetation growth conditions in areas with agricultural land cover to spatially identify irrigated lands at a spatial detail of 250-m2 (Pervez and Brown 2010). Scientists have evaluated recent changes in irrigation extent utilizing a modeling approach combining remotely sensed observations with agricultural statistics for two annual periods (2002 and 2007). National maps for 2002 and 2007 were created utilizing USDA statistics and MODIS satellite data. The MODIS Irrigated Agriculture Data for the U.S. (MIrAD-US) were consistently modeled assimilating irrigation statistics and remotely sensed inputs of vegetation indices and land cover in a geospatial framework. The 2002 (fig. 23) and 2007 MIrAD-US have estimated accuracy of 86 percent and 91 percent, respectively, based on assessments completed for central California, Snake River basin, and the central plains.


The overall change in irrigated area from 2002 to 2007 was +3 percent, but changes showed definite regional patterns. Other areas which showed significant increases were eastern Nebraska (16.3 percent), eastern Arkansas (6 percent) and western Kansas (5.4 percent). Areas of significant decreases in irrigation occurred in southern California (7.7 percent) and Florida (16.5 percent). Around 66 percent of the irrigated areas remained stable in 17 western states compared to 41 percent unchanged irrigated areas in the remaining states – an indication of high to low stability in irrigation in a west to east gradient. In contrast to the rest of the western U.S., the irrigated areas in the parts of Columbia River basin, Washington and the Willamette Valley, Oregon showed larger spatial and temporal variability. In Texas, even though the total irrigated areas remained fairly stable, around 48 percent of the irrigated areas, mostly located in southeastern Texas, have changed in location. In the east, Florida lost irrigated areas scattered all over the state apparently due to drought conditions in 2007, whereas irrigated areas increased in southwestern Georgia. Future work will investigate relationships among cropping patterns (crop types) and climate with stability and change in irrigated lands. Not only has the national geospatial irrigated area data (MIrAD-US) been used to improve EROS wall-to-wall drought monitoring models (Brown et al. 2008), it has also been used by researchers in the USGS, universities, agricultural seed companies, and private research labs. The data has been investigated for its potential in a variety of applications, including models to estimate biophysical carbon sequestration, predict agricultural productivity and crop-water use, investigate how land use practices affect biogeochemistry (e.g., carbon and nitrogen exchange), and see the effects of irrigation within a mesoscale weather forecasting model. For further information, contact Jesslyn Brown, USGS EROS, [email protected]. References include: Brown, J.F., Wardlow, B.D., Tadesse, T., Hayes, M.J., and Reed, B.C., 2008, The Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI): A new integrated approach for monitoring drought stress in vegetation. GIScience and Remote Sensing, 45, 16-46. Pervez, M.S., and Brown, J.F., 2010, Mapping irrigated lands at 250-m scale by merging MODIS data and national agricultural statistics. Remote Sensing, 2, 2388-2412.



Figure 23. 2002 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer irrigated agriculture data for the United States with visual Landsat comparisons. USGS Science Supports Early Humanitarian Response to Famine Conditions in East Africa

USGS scientists, in partnership with USAID, developed forecasts of drought conditions that led to intense monitoring that supported the United Nations famine declaration for southern Somalia. Parts of eastern Africa, including Somalia, experienced two consecutive seasons of very poor rainfall, resulting in the worst drought in 60 years (fig. 24). Crops failed, livestock deaths were widespread, and food prices were very high. While the depth of the crisis outstripped the capacity of the humanitarian response, USGS support to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) helped mitigate severe malnutrition and mortality. The combination of USGS climate research and remote sensing applications provided a powerful tool for (1) advance warning of impending drought and (2) immediate and accurate assessments of a broad range of environmental and agricultural conditions.


When considered within historical context, these tools leverage the capacity of remote sensing to help mitigate the effects of drought. According to the United Nation‘s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (of Somalia), the crisis represents the most serious food insecurity situation in the world today, in terms of both scale and severity. Historically, it is Africa‘s worst food security crisis since Somalia‘s 1991-1992 famine. ―The partnership between USAID and USGS on famine forecasting through FEWS NET is a great example of two science based agencies working together to help mitigate a humanitarian crisis that is also vital to peace and security,‖ said USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. ―This partnership has facilitated an early and quick response to the severe drought affecting millions in the Horn of Africa.‖ The crisis in southern Somalia was driven by a combination of factors. The total failure of the October-December rains (the secondary season) and the poor performance of the March-June rains (the primary rainy season) resulted in crop failure, reduced labor demand, and excess animal mortality. The resulting decline in grain availability, coupled with trade restrictions, subsequently pushed local grain prices to record levels. Sponsored by the USAID Office of Food for Peace, FEWS NET identified critical instances where food aid was required by the most food insecure population of the developing world, populations whose livelihoods are tied to subsistence rainfed agriculture and pastoralism. Climate forecasts developed by FEWS NET scientists supplied forward-looking food security assessments based on expected agricultural outcomes for the season ahead. Since ground station networks are sparse in developing countries, FEWS NET has a tradition of relying upon satellite remote sensing of vegetation and rainfall. And, as the satellite record expands, both in time and in spatial resolution, new products such as the ―expedited‖ Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (eMODIS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) enhance our capability to identify drought and at-risk populations. FEWS NET partners include USAID, USGS, NASA, NOAA, USDA, and Chemonics International who has been implementing field activities for FEWS NET since 2000. The USGS EROS Center, located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, provides scientific analyses based on remote sensing, environmental modeling, and GIS technologies to support FEWS NET activities throughout the world; these activities help save lives and limit hunger. For further information, contact Christopher Funk, USGS EROS, [email protected].



Figure 24. Graphic illustrates 2010/2011 rainfall compared to historical totals (since 1950/1951) in select pastoral areas of Kenya and Ethiopia (analysis by U.S. Geological Survey‘s Famine Early Warning Systems Network). Remote Sensing Activities The USGS EROS Center‘s remote sensing activities are framed around excellence in science, data management, infrastructure, and facilities devoted to evaluation and assessment of land changes and their impact on society. Core to the EROS mission is the continuity of remote sensing of the Earth‘s land surfaces at all scales to ensure availability of historical and current observations. Although EROS is perhaps best known as the USGS receiving station for Landsat satellite images, data from many other satellites and other remote sensing platforms also are archived and distributed by EROS. Receiving, calibrating and validating, processing, archiving, and distributing these data are primary tasks performed at EROS. In addition, EROS is defining requirements and specifications for future instruments, developing and implementing ground systems for future Earth observing missions, and developing national and international partnerships.


Landsat Program The Landsat Program is a joint effort of the USGS and NASA to gather Earth resource data using a series of land observing satellites. Whereas NASA‘s role is the development and launch of Earth observing instruments and spacecrafts, the USGS is responsible for flight operations, maintenance, and management of all ground data reception, processing, archiving, product generation, and distribution. A primary objective of the Landsat Program is to ensure a collection of consistently calibrated Earth imagery. Today, the Landsat Project at EROS manages two active satellites – Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 – and the entire historic archive of data collected since 1972 – more than 3.3 million images. In FY 2009, a change in data policy (no charge, web enabled data) transformed the distribution of Landsat data for scientists and operational users worldwide; and as a result, millions of Landsat images have been delivered to customers! As of FY 2011, Landsat 5 reached 27 years in orbit, and Landsat 7 reached 12 years in orbit. With the respective design life of 3 years and 5 years, both of these satellites continue to provide essential data to scientists well beyond their expected lifespan. The Landsat team continually is working to extend the longevity of the satellites in orbit, enhance Landsat data quality, improve systems at EROS used to archive, process, and access Landsat data, and is leading the design and development of the ground system for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission. Key accomplishments are given in the following sections. Landsat Delivers More Than 6,000,000 Scenes

Because of the many managers of the Landsat mission over its first 35 years, there had been rather large fluctuations in the cost of Landsat images – from a height of over $4,000 per image. Regardless of the pricing, cost had always been identified as a barrier in widespread use of Landsat data, particularly for broad-scale studies, dense time series, or for operational management decisions. In December 2008, the USGS began distributing the entire Landsat archive for free via the internet. This era of free Landsat data spurred entire new directions of research, as users could try out new techniques that would have previously been too costly. Landsat is widely acknowledged as a key witness to the changes on Earth in the last 40 years; and as such, its data can be applied to a vast array of research questions and operational issues. The response to the free images was immediate. In the first month (December 2008), we had distributed over 130,000 images – more than five times our highest year in the sales era. In FY 2011, we passed the milestone of 4 million images distributed in November, then 5 million images in March, then 6 million images in June. Six million images could cover the Earth over 330 times. Because of the power of the Landsat archive‘s global scope and multi-decadal depth and accessibility, scenes are downloaded many, many times. The images of Chernobyl in 1986, New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, or Beijing in the run-up to the 2008


Olympic Games are among the popular downloads. Whether it is an image of a favorite city, National Park, or coral reef, a long series of images that documents a glacier‘s advance and retreat, a multi-national effort to document the widespread flooding from the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, or the monitoring of surface water irrigation in Uruguay, Landsat data has broad appeal to tens of thousands of people and organizations around the globe. For further information, contact Kristi Kline, USGS EROS, [email protected]. EROS Archive – More History to Learn From

Over the last 40 years, the six Landsat satellites have been working around the clock to acquire images of Earth. The Landsat Mission partners with ground stations around the globe to downlink data. Each of the six spacecraft that have served the mission had design differences and technical peculiarities. In some cases, downlinking to an international ground station was the only way to collect images outside of the United States. Recently, the Landsat project has embarked upon an effort to retain a copy of all of these images at the Landsat archive at USGS EROS. This effort, called the Global Archive Consolidation, includes over a dozen stations that have downlinked over 5 million images over the last 40 years. Data that is the oldest, called Multispectral Scanner (MSS), is at rather high risk of loss, since the data itself is old by digital standards and many technical changes have occurred in the intervening years. The longest running sensor, the Thematic Mapper (TM), comprises the bulk of the international archives, collecting data since 1982. The most advanced sensor, the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), has been managed by the USGS to acquire the entire globe at least four times per year, but additional data can be found in international archives. In FY 2011, the Landsat project ingested over 500,000 new images into the USGS Landsat archive. The project had significant success ingesting data from Canada, as well as starting on the Indonesian and Puerto Rican archives. The new copies of international images include higher quality scenes over parts of Canada, and one of the only clear images of Singapore in the entire last two decades (fig. 25). Global Archive Consolidation is only possible with the help of our international network of ground stations that are willing to contribute a copy of their archive to the USGS. The Landsat project has been grateful for a spirit of community that permeates all of our partnerships, particularly as the next satellite in the series, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), approaches its launch in FY 2013. Although rife with challenges such as aging media and technical unknowns, the Global Archive Consolidation continues to increase the breadth and depth of the USGS Landsat archive. For further information, contact Kristi Kline, USGS EROS, [email protected].




Figure 25. This image of Singpore was taken on February 8, 2009, with the Thematic Mapper instrument onboard Landsat 5. It was originally downlinked to Indonesia, who recently contributed the image to the USGS Landsat Global Archive Consolidation effort. New Missions The USGS and the EROS Center continually are seeking opportunities to collaborate in the development and operations of Earth observing remote sensing missions to satisfy the needs of the Nation‘s land imaging data requirements. The New Missions activities facilitate the communication and definition of USGS Land Remote Sensing (LRS) program requirements to the EROS Center. These activities are focused on developing partnerships to collect, archive, process, and distribute remotely sensed data in response to the evolving needs of scientific research, operational applications, decision makers, and educators. Towards these ends, teams are established to develop project plans, define and document requirements, perform systems engineering analysis, and implement technical solutions. Key accomplishments are given in the following sections.


Landsat Data Continuity Mission: Ground System Development Progress

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) continues the legacy of the Landsat series of satellites. The LDCM ground system completed several significant development milestones during FY 2011. The Ground Network Element completed the development, integration, and delivery of all three ground stations, with locations in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Fairbanks, Alaska; and Svalbard, Norway (fig. 26). Also, the space to ground interface between the LDCM spacecraft and the LDCM ground stations was verified in the LDCM Radio Frequency compatibility test. The test was highly successful, demonstrating that the end-to-end link performance will easily meet the 10e-12 BER and 3 dB implementation loss requirements. The test also demonstrated the capability of the ground system to receive and process the Consultative Committee on Space Data Systems File Data Protocol data files that were generated and formatted by the spacecraft. Thus, the test demonstrated, with ample margin, that the system works end-to-end at the levels of performance needed for LDCM to deliver 400 scenes per day to the ground system for processing, archive, and distribution. The Data Processing and Archive System (DPAS) provides science data ingest, storage, archive, image processing, and distribution capabilities for LDCM. The DPAS achieved two major milestones – first demonstrating the launch-critical capability to ingest and permanently archive the LDCM science data, and second showing the ability to generate LDCM Level 1 data products (fig. 27). The Collection Activity Planning Element (CAPE) completed its launch-ready release and integrated it into the Mission Operations Center (MOC), verifying the CAPE‘s ability to schedule all image collections for LDCM. The CAPE implements the Long-Term Acquisition Plan-8, which continues the Landsat image collection scheme. The Ground System System‘s Engineering and Integration and Test teams completed a number of ground system functional and interface testing to verify ground system requirements, including:

Ground Readiness Test (GRT) 1: verified command and telemetry functions

GRT 2: verified observatory planning, scheduling, and mission data management functions, as well as the interface between the MOC and the Landsat Ground Station in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

GRT 3: verified ground system planning for observatory maneuvers and special events

GRT 4a: verified capability to ingest and permanently archive observatory science data

Network Connectivity Test – Svalbard: verified the interface between the MOC and the SvalSat Ground Station in Svalbard, Norway


GRT 6a: verified remaining MOC capabilities needed prior to testing with the LDCM spacecraft

Mission Readiness Test 1: verified ground system command and telemetry and link control capabilities with the LDCM spacecraft

The Ground System and Operations Teams completed two major reviews: the Mission Operations Review (MOR) and the Ground and Mission Readiness Review (GMRR). The MOR described the approach and plans for the flight operations of the LDCM spacecraft and ground system. The MOR was very successful with four Requests for Action (RFAs) and six advisories. All RFAs and advisories were closed to the satisfaction of the review panel. The GMRR demonstrated the Ground System and Flight Operations Team‘s readiness to test with the spacecraft. The review was completed with no formal actions and a commendation from the review panel chair ―The project is commended for their excellent progress to date and is wished much success in the upcoming test and simulation program.‖ The joint NASA/USGS Calibration and Validation Team continued its characterization and assessment of the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) instruments on board the LDCM spacecraft. The OLI instrument completed development and instrument-level testing and held a Pre-Ship Review on August 3, 2011. The OLI instrument has demonstrated excellent image data performance. The TIRS instrument completed instrument development and entered environmental testing in the fall of 2011 and is preparing for a January 2012 ship to the spacecraft vendor for observatory integration. Overall, the LDCM ground system is making excellent progress toward the December 2012 launch date of the LDCM spacecraft. For further information, contact Jim Nelson, USGS EROS, [email protected].



Figure 26. Landsat Data Continuity Mission ground station coverage masks.

Figure 27. Simulated Landsat Data Continuity Mission level 1 product.


Land Satellites Data System During spring 2009, the USGS LRS program made the decision to consolidate the existing land satellite related Exhibit 300s (i.e., Landsat Operations and Maintenance and LDCM). Four factors contributed to this decision:

During January 2009, several members of the DOI Investment Review Board (IRB) noted that it was difficult to review and score separate but highly inter-related investments, because the whole picture was not ―in view‖ for consideration and scoring.

The USGS wanted to better enable future land satellite planning and implementation efforts without establishing a new Exhibit 300 for each mission or project.

The USGS wanted to remove the Landsat and mission specific terminology, in favor of a more general land satellite concept that may be less restrictive or single-solution oriented.

The USGS wanted to reduce administrative burden of maintaining similar, but not matching, sets of Exhibit 300 documentation.

EROS and LRS developed a proposal and conducted briefings for the USGS IRB, DOI IRB, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The DOI approved the proposed consolidation December 17, 2009. OMB approved the consolidation January 8, 2010. EROS and LRS approved the Land Satellites Data System (LSDS) Charter and work breakdown structure consisting of oversight, science, operations and maintenance, and LDCM development (fig. 28). LSDS includes information technology (IT) and non-IT, with only the IT work and deliverables currently being included within the Exhibit 300. On October 1, 2010, the LSDS became an active DOI/USGS Exhibit 300. The LSDS investment eliminates any performance gap by ensuring that consistently calibrated imagery of the Earth's land surface will be available to users worldwide. LSDS fulfills DOI/USGS requirements under the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992 for the continuity of Landsat data and the Presidential Decision Directive-4 National Space Policy that provides the Secretary responsibility for managing U.S. space capabilities to observe natural and human-induced changes to the Earth's land and land cover. During FY 2011, LSDS awarded a contract to Booz Allen Hamilton to develop critical processes and documents required by the Capital Planning and Investment Control policies of OMB. The required deliverables include: Alternative Analysis, Cost Benefit Analysis, Charter, Governance Plan, Program Management Plan, and subsidiary plans.


LSDS established new practices for cost estimating in support of current and future mission planning that achieve higher confidence levels. These practices have been implemented across the projects within LSDS, and a planner has been established to support the effort. LSDS implemented common quality management practices across the operations and development projects. The LSDS projects have been working on implementing common change control processes. LSDS established risk management practices across the projects and maintains a risk register for LSDS. The International Cooperator funding was moved to LSDS to eliminate the operational dependency on variable income. LSDS completed an integration study to define an approach for fully integrating the Landsat 5 and 7 operations system with the new LDCM system post launch. The team is just beginning to review the proposed plan. The team will formulate a proposal for review by management. The LSDS projects are working well together on architecture, technology approach and procurement, establishing common project management and system engineering practices, acquisition approach and strategy, sharing resources, and communicating frequently and intentionally. Planned FY 2012-2013 accomplishments include: continue operations (steady state) of Landsats 5 and 7 to capture, archive, process and distribute data to users; complete development/modernization/enhancement (DME) activities for the December 2012 scheduled launch; final testing and integration of the ground systems, launch rehearsals, and simulations of operations from the verification of data reception to the delivery of products; and initiate steady state phase for Landsat 8, which becomes operational 90 days after launch (March 2013). LSDS is a unique global service provider that serves a continuous 39-year record of imagery covering the Earth's entire land surface to more than 33,000 users in 186 countries. LSDS customers/users include Federal, State, and local tribal governments, academia, industry, international community, and the general public requiring land surface data for applications such as global change research, emergency response, agricultural, forestry, geology, and resource management. For further information, contact David Hair, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Land SatellitesData System

(LSDS)

LSDS Project OfficeScience, Research

& DevelopmentOperations &Maintenance

LDCM Development

Figure 28. Land Satellite Data System level 1 and 2 work breakdown structure.



Landsat Science Team: Improving Landsat Data Quality, Quantity, and Uses The USGS-NASA Landsat Science Team was established through an international competition in 2006. The team, sponsored by the USGS and NASA, consists of 18 scientists and engineers representing academia, private industry, Federal agencies, and international organizations. The team members and their affiliations are presented in table 1. The team is responsible to investigate issues critical to the success of the overall Landsat program, including the upcoming LDCM. Their measure of success is the complete integration of LDCM data with past, present, and future Landsat data for the purpose of monitoring global environmental systems. The Landsat Science Team was selected to serve for 5 years. Since 2006, the team has held two meetings per year (winter and summer) that focused on all aspects of the Landsat program, including LDCM, Landsat 5 and 7 status, the archive, future Landsat mission requirements, and synergy with other space-based remote sensing missions. The summer meetings focused on Landsat science and applications. Participants of the Landsat Science Team meeting on August 16-18, 2011, at the USGS EROS Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is presented in figure 29. The team also held several technical meetings that investigated data processing needs and approaches. All meeting presentations, as well as summaries of the winter and summer meetings, are available through the USGS EROS Landsat Science Team website at http://landsat.usgs.gov/science_LST_Team_Meetings.php. In addition to the scheduled meetings, the team was frequently called on to provide an evaluation of specific issues facing the Landsat program. For example, they addressed specific technical issues such as standardizing Landsat pixel dimensions, Landsat program priorities for release of web-enabled Landsat data and recovery of old Multispectral Scanner System (MSS) data, LDCM requirements including provision of level 0R products and launch delay impacts, and requirements for future Landsat missions. In almost every case, the relevance and clarity of the team‘s input resulted in acceptance by the USGS and NASA. A look back at the 5 years of service shows that the Landsat Science Team had many positive impacts on LDCM and the Landsat program. Some of the major highlights include:

Web-Enabled Landsat Data. The team contributed to the single most profound Landsat-related event that occurred during their tenure – the decision to distribute Landsat data for free. They raised this as an opportunity in their first year and supported all aspects of the USGS efforts to open the Landsat archive, including providing a May 28, 2008, letter to the journal Science endorsing free access to Landsat data.

LDCM TIRS. The team‘s proactive advocacy contributed to NASA‘s decision to restore LDCM thermal imaging capabilities. Their letter to NASA and USGS leaders concluded that:

http://landsat.usgs.gov/science_LST_Team_Meetings.php


“Failing to continue the 28-year history of Landsat-scale thermal surveillance will have negative consequences in terms of safeguarding the future economy, environment, health, and natural resources of the United States and our ability to address water supply crises abroad.”

Landsat Global Archive Consolidation. The team initially suggested making repatriation and consolidation of international Landsat holdings a priority during the 2007 summer meeting by calling on the USGS to ―…bring copies of foreign holdings into the U.S. archive. The sooner work begins on this front the better, as delays will result in more images being lost.‖ The team‘s continued encouragement and input on priorities has resulted in a major expansion of Landsat archive holdings.

Supporting National Land Imaging (NLI) and Future Landsats. The team collectively and individually advocated for NLI and an operational Landsat program throughout their term and contributed to the development of mission concepts for Landsats 9 and 10.

Research and Development. The team‘s science, applications, and engineering accomplishments have had significant impacts on Landsat, remote sensing, and environmental science. Through more than 400 scientific publications, the team reported methodologies for using large volumes of Landsat data for long-term and/or broad-area studies, and established the foundation for the generation of higher level Landsat science products.

The USGS-NASA Landsat Science Team has had a tremendous impact on the Landsat program over the past 5 years, playing an instrumental role as a catalyst for major advances in data quality and quantity, and the science and applications of Landsat data. The members of the team provided relevant and practical input that demonstrated their clear commitment to the needs of the diverse Landsat science and applications user communities, and a clear understanding of the operational challenges facing the USGS, NASA, and Landsat. The 5-year term for the Landsat Science Team ended in September 2011. The USGS is now working toward the competitive selection of a new team that will serve for another 5 years. The new team will be convened in early 2012. For further information, contact Thomas Loveland, USGS EROS, [email protected]. Table 1. Landsat Science Team members and their affiliations.

Member Affiliation

Richard Allen University of Idaho Martha Anderson U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service Alan Belward Joint Research Center of the European Commission Robert Bindschadler NASA Goddard Space Flight Center



Member Affiliation

Warren Cohen U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station

Feng Gao Earth Resources Technology Sam Goward University of Maryland Dennis Helder South Dakota State University Eileen Helmer U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, International Institute of

Tropical Forestry Rama Nemani NASA Ames Research Center Lazaros Oreopoulos University of Maryland -Baltimore County John Schott Rochester Institute of Technology Prasad Thenkabail U.S. Geological Survey Eric Vermote University of Maryland James Vogelmann U.S. Geological Survey Curtis Woodcock Boston University Michael Wulder Canadian Forest Service Randolph Wynne Virginia Polytechnic Institute

Figure 29. Participants in Landsat Science Team meeting, USGS EROS Center, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, August 16-18, 2011.


International Cooperator Network: 20th Landsat Technical Working Group – Preparing for December 2012 LDCM (Landsat 8) Launch

The Landsat Technical Working Group (LTWG#20) meeting was held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on May 23-27, 2011. Participants from 17 countries, including members of the USGS and NASA Landsat and LDCM projects, represented 23 United States and international ground stations and discussed a wide range of technical topics. A photograph of the participants of the LTWG#20 is presented in figure 30. Special guest, Anne Castle, DOI Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, welcomed the attendees and provided perspective on the key role they play in current and future international land imaging cooperation. The Landsat International Cooperator (IC) Network has been enhanced over the years to provide not only basic data downlink services, but it also provides numerous key strategic and tactical USGS benefits, including:

local and regional expertise to the global Landsat community,

historical and ongoing global data collection as well as backup capabilities,

vital International Charter and other Emergency Response support,

critical spacecraft anomaly investigation and recovery operations, and

an expansion of available scientific and technical resources/capabilities. Landsat project presentations included Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 mission statuses, Global Land Survey status, the Landsat Global Archive Consolidation (LGAC) initiative, operational Data Validation and Exchange (DV&E) status, and Calibration/Validation. The Landsat project also hosted a technical workshop on Landsat 1-5 MSS Data Processing current progress and future plans. LDCM presentations included Project and Ground System status including plans and timelines for LDCM Ground System processing software availability, the LDCM Space-to-IC interface, and DV&E and Ground Station Certification. A Landsat Science Team update was also presented, providing information on several key application and research projects. NASA also provided attendees with an overview of the overall LDCM mission status. Concurrent with the typical LTWG agenda, the USGS also hosted a 3-day Ground System Technical Workshop for its IC attendees. A listing the countries and organizations represented by the IC and United States attendees is provided in table 2. The workshop covered both Landsat and LDCM (Landsat 8) ground system technical information such as requirements, interfaces, design, and implementation details, which will prepare them for the December 2012 launch of LDCM (Landsat 8). Each IC briefed the group on the status of their ground systems including electronic data delivery capabilities and challenges, presented their future satellite mission(s), provided an overview of their data distribution model(s), and discussed current status of their LGAC activities. For further information, contact Steve Labahn, USGS EROS, [email protected].



Figure 30. Participants in 20th Landsat Technical Working Group meeting held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on May 23-27, 2011. Table 2. Listing of countries and organizations represented in concurrent 3-day Ground System Technical Workshop.

Country Organization

Argentina CONAE Australia GA-NEO Australia DCCEE Brazil INPE, AMS Kepler Canada CCRS MDA China CEODE Ecuador CLIRSEN Europe ESA Germany DLR Indonesia LAPAN Japan RESTEC Mexico CONABIO Russia ScanEx Saudi Arabia KACST South Africa SANSA, PinkMatter Sweden SSC Thailand GISTDA United States DOI, USGS, NASA, Aerospace, Honeywell, Lockheed

Martin, SeaSpace, SGT, Virtuoso


USGS Moves Forward with Development of Information Products for Terrestrial Monitoring The USGS EROS Center is developing capabilities to retrieve geophysical and biophysical parameters from the Landsat data archive. These products include surface reflectance, land surface temperature, and leaf area index (LAI), and have been identified as needed parameters for use in monitoring changes to the state and condition of the Earth‘s land surface. The Global Climate Observing System has identified these and additional parameters as key information products that should be derived from remote sensing observations in response to the needs of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for use in a variety of models and decision support applications. The President‘s Office of Science and Technology Policy has also recommended that these climate data records and essential climate variables be considered for use in the U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment. The retrieval of these geophysical and biophysical parameters at the unique spectral and spatial characteristics of Landsat data also offer potential benefits to United States resource inventory and monitoring programs operating at national and regional scales. The use of remotely sensed data to monitor changes in the state and condition of land cover require the collection of consistent observations on a regular periodic basis. Furthermore, observations from multiple instruments must be well calibrated and corrected for observing geometry, seasonal variation in solar insolation, and the effects of molecular scattering and absorption by the atmosphere. Radiometric and geometric calibration coefficients are computed and applied to develop accurate measurements of geographically located at-sensor radiances. These are then combined with atmospheric characterization information (aerosols, water vapor, ozone, surface pressure) as inputs to radiative transfer models to generate ―clear view‖ observations of the Earth‘s surface. The surface reflectance and surface temperature retrievals serve as the basic measurements used for modeling land surface change as well as inputs to models to derive biophysical parameters such as LAI and fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (fAPAR). LAI is a key variable in many models describing vegetation-atmosphere interactions, particularly with respect to the carbon and water cycles (fig. 31). The fAPAR plays a critical role in the primary productivity of canopies and the associated fixation of atmospheric carbon and the energy balance of the surface. The EROS Science Processing Architecture is operational, and the Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System software has been implemented to enable on-demand processing of Landsat 5 and 7 data to surface reflectance. EROS has developed protocols for characterizing uncertainties in these provisional products and have made these capabilities accessible to USGS, NASA, and university scientists for the purposes of evaluating product quality and usability. USGS scientists and engineers are collaborating with scientists from NASA‘s Goddard Space Flight Center, Ames Research Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the


Rochester Institute of Technology. For further information, contact John Dywer, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 31. Leaf area index data derived for the state of California using Landsat data from the Global Land Survey 2005 data collection (Courtesy of Rama Nemani, NASA Ames Research Center). The leaf area index values increase from the tan, light blue, and yellow to the orange and red hues.



Data Management and Distribution The USGS EROS Center manages a variety of data collections acquired from a wide array of current and historical sources, and distributes them to a broad range of global and niche user communities in science, applications, and operations. Data sources range from active satellite missions that are operated by EROS and others, historical aerial and satellite sources, as well as information about elevation, land cover, and other aspects of the Earth‘s land surfaces and data that are maintained in the EROS archives. The archives include film and digital systems developed commercially, in-house, and by and with other collaborators such as NASA. Access to the data is via a number of web-enabled user interfaces tailored to the collaborators‘ and users‘ needs, from simple websites to fully featured data discovery tools. In addition to managing the data as bits, EROS maintains the data via a data calibration and validation function, as well as science-based collection appraisals, and working with NASA and academia to ensure the integrity and value of the data. EROS uses this broad range of capabilities in collaboration with a number of partners to more effectively meet USGS strategic objectives. Key accomplishments are given in the following sections. Successfully Moving (eMODIS) from Research to Operations In FY 2011, the Long Term Archive (LTA) project, in cooperation with the Earth Observation Systems (EOS) project, was tasked with transitioning the eMODIS prototype system from a research environment to an operational environment. This required moving the software from the EOS research systems located within the Land Process Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) to LTA operational systems which are currently producing and distributing expedited, forward, and historical products of the conterminous United States, Central Asia, Africa, Central America, and Alaska (fig. 32). Moving the process to more productive servers resulted in a 15-20 times improvement per composited product. The eMODIS prototype system was developed by the scientists to overcome the shortcomings of making the MODIS directly useful for real-time applications including difficulties with re-projection, format conversion, mosaicking, and sub-setting. This resulted in a system where the ―e‖ in eMODIS represents ―enhanced,‖ ―expedited,‖ ―expandable‖ MODIS data, and the output product (fig. 33) provides the land science community with NDVI and surface reflectance data more frequently than Landsat and at a higher spatial resolution than AVHRR. The vegetation monitoring community has benefited, since the product was released in 2006, by having access to a product that enhances the accuracy of their existing tools and to facilitate a link with the AVHRR record. Some users have developed a reliance on it as an input to their operational monitoring activities. For further information, contact Wayne Miller, USGS EROS, [email protected].



Figure 32. eMODIS production regions.

Figure 33. eMODIS continental United States normalized difference vegetation index composite.


EOS LP DAAC at EROS Expands Data Access Mechanisms in Support of the ASTER and MODIS Land User Community The LP DAAC is one of several discipline-specific data centers within the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) Data and Information System (EOSDIS). The LP DAAC promotes interdisciplinary study of terrestrial phenomena by providing data for mapping, modeling, and monitoring land surface patterns and processes. To meet this mission, the LP DAAC ingests, archives, processes, distributes, and documents data from land-related EOS sensors. The LP DAAC offers nearly 100 unique data products derived from the ASTER and MODIS sensors through a variety of data access clients including NASA Earth Science Data and Information System clients such as REVERB (http://reverb.echo.nasa.gov/reverb/) and LP DAAC clients such as MRTWeb (https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/lpdaac/get_data/mrtweb). The LP DAAC has utilized the USGS GloVis access client for over 10 years and this has been a very popular access mechanism. Figure 34 provides a retrospective look at 10 years of user demand and the evolution of multiple modalities for EOS land data access from the LP DAAC. In FY 2011, the LP DAAC collaborated with the USGS LTA project to utilize Earth Explorer as another tool to search and distribute their ASTER and MODIS data collections. The Earth Explorer tool provides users the ability to query, search, and order satellite images, aerial photographs, and cartographic products from several sources. In addition to data from the Landsat missions and a variety of other data providers, Earth Explorer now provides access to approximately 65 ASTER and MODIS data products, https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/lpdaac/get_data/usgs_earthexplorer. In FY 2011, the LP DAAC distributed more than 46 million files of ASTER and MODIS data to the user community (approximately 1.17 petabyte). As part of the overall LP DAAC data access strategy, the USGS Earth Explorer and GloVis clients provide a key role for their unique functionality and recognition within the land remote sensing community. The LP DAAC is one of several discipline-specific data centers within the NASA EOSDIS. NASA and USGS announced on August 28, 1990, that the USGS EROS Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota would process, archive, and distribute land processes data received from EOS satellites, thus establishing a Distributed Active Archive Center, or DAAC. The LP DAAC has provided an excellent example of collaboration between NASA and the USGS at EROS for over two decades. For further information, contact LP DAAC User Services, 866-573-3222, [email protected], http://LPDAAC.usgs.gov.

http://reverb.echo.nasa.gov/reverb/

https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/lpdaac/get_data/mrtweb

https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/lpdaac/get_data/usgs_earthexplorer


http://lpdaac.usgs.gov/


Figure 34. Retrospective look at 10 years of user demand and the evolution of multiple modalities for Earth Observing System land data access from the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. Cloud Technology Explored In an effort to move forward with the DOI Cloud-First policy, the USGS EROS Center partnered with the Federal Geographic Data Committee‘s Geospatial Cloud Initiative and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to test a private cloud implementation. The implementation goal was to develop a private cloud implementation running on-premise with Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service to support geospatial services and applications. Although the implementation was accomplished on the


smallest set of resources that could reasonably satisfy the National Institute of Standards and Technology definition of Cloud Computing, the architecture allowed the staff to identify potential issues and limitations of the environment with minimal investment. The testing included migration of existing services to virtualized resources, scaling the service environment, simulating hardware failure, and use of the resulting services in a production environment. Three types of services were identified for testing (fig. 35). These were legacy ArcIMS services with data storage in ArcSDE, ArcGIS Image Server Extension services with data directly accessible on disk, and ArcGIS Server cached services with cache data stored on virtual disks. These three service types encompass the majority of the services delivered through the Spatial Data Warehouse project at EROS. Performance of virtualized resources was within 10 percent of the existing stand-alone server, which is much better than the 50 percent or more performance hit shown in earlier virtualization testing. Now the performance is tied to the amount of resources available which can be adjusted through the management interfaces even while services are running in production. During this testing, servers were successfully cloned, and automatically survived hardware failure with minimal or no downtime. The only environment condition that was not successfully implemented in this testing was the direct access to disk resources on a Storage Area Network (SAN) environment. The software used in this implementation would only be able to allow one connection to the SAN resources per underlying hardware environment. This effectively limits connections to the SAN to one instance on one server machine, offering little advantage over the physical server environment. All other capabilities of the testing environment worked and showed that a private cloud computing environment would be a viable solution for delivery of data. For further information, contact Douglas Binnie, USGS EROS, [email protected].



Figure 35. Illustration represents three services supporting The National Map tested in cloud environment. Network Augmented to Meet User Needs The USGS EROS Center is one of five network gateways for the Department of the Interior, which means the EROS network gateway provides critical Internet connectivity for the Center and the Department‘s regional climate science centers. The EROS gateway also provides connectivity for intra-USGS data transfer. EROS‘ third wide-area network, StarLight, provides high-speed data transfer for users needing to connect to Internet2, an advanced Research and Education (R&E) network connecting State universities and international, Federal, and State research centers (fig. 36). The StarLight network transports data not only to and from Internet2, but also to and from half a dozen R&E networks such as National Lambda Rail, Energy Sciences Network, and Pacific Wave. To provide a measure of comparison for the volume of traffic EROS handles, consider a typical full-length movie is approximately 4 gigabytes in size. The Center‘s daily data transfer is equivalent to about 1,900 movies. The Library of Congress has 15.3-million online digital files, totaling 74 terabytes (TB). The Center transfers the equivalent of the entire Library of Congress‘ digital holdings nearly every 9 days.


In FY 2011, EROS contracted for a high-speed optical network (―StarLight‖) from Sioux Falls to Chicago to increase the capacity (bandwidth) for data distribution to users worldwide. The network capacity was increased fourfold, from 622-megabits per second to 2,488-megabits per second. If the network operated at full capacity 24 hours per day, approximately 26 terabytes would be transferred daily – both outbound and inbound. The previous network operated at full capacity much of the day, but the current network has approximately 50-percent headroom to handle future growth and higher data flows likely to occur in a national emergency. In FY 2011, StarLight was the conduit for over half of all 700 terabytes of data received and 2,100 terabytes of data distributed by EROS to users around the globe (fig. 37). In August 2008, when Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced that 35 years of archived Landsat data would be made available without charge to the public over the web by the end of the year, he greatly increased the public service role the USGS EROS Center would play as lead center for implementation of the initiative. While the focus of the Secretary‘s initiative in FY 2008 was on science data being made available over the web without charge, the EROS Center‘s expanded network has ensured that users worldwide requesting these data sets receive them quickly, reliably, and easily. For further information, contact John Boyd, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 36. The graph illustrates the volume of data distributed to those organizations each receiving 10 terabytes or more of science data in 2011, including a mix of Federal agencies, State universities, international destinations, commercial firms, and network service providers. ‗Europe‘ and ‗Asia-Pacific‘ represent thousands of destinations in those continental areas, while ‗Google‘ refers to the science/research element of Google, not the search engine. One obstacle to depicting users worldwide is the nature of Internet addressing. Many addresses do not reveal the names of destinations, making it difficult to compile profiles of data users.



Figure 37. The graph shows the rapid increase in the volume of Earth science data distributed following Secretary Kempthorne‘s announcement, in August 2008, of public availability of web-enabled data at no cost to the user. Approximately 680 terabytes were received and 2,250 terabytes were distributed during 2011 by the 200 highest-volume servers at EROS. Since detailed recordkeeping began in 2003, the Center has received and distributed approximately 11,300 terabytes (green curve). A terabyte is 1,000,000 megabytes. Consolidated Archive and Distribution Data Report: A Monthly “Consolidated Report" for All Data Managed and Distributed at EROS The USGS EROS has a prepared report template used by the EROS projects for inputting their respective data managed and distributed. The template, reviewed by the projects and the USGS LRS program, gives statistics in terabytes distributed and managed in FY 2011. Data distributed and managed for all projects, showing both monthly and cumulative totals is shown in figures 38-41. Data distributed and managed are shown in figures 42-51 for the following groupings:

Landsat (figures 42 and 43)

LP DAAC (figures 44 and 45)

Other Satellite (figures 46 and 47)

Non-Satellite (figures 48 and 49)

Geospatial (figures 50 and 51) including Land Cover, Orthoimagery, Elevation, and Other

For further information, contact John Faundeen, USGS EROS, [email protected].



Figure 38. FY 2011 Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center, Landsat, other satellite, non-satellite, and geospatial total data distributed.

Figure 39. FY 2011 Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center, Landsat, other satellite, non-satellite, and geospatial total data managed.


Figure 40. FY 2011 Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center, Landsat, other satellite, non-satellite, and geospatial data distributed.

Figure 41. FY 2011 Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center, Landsat, other satellite, non-satellite, and geospatial data managed.


Figure 42. FY 2011 Landsat satellite data distributed.

Figure 43. FY 2011 Landsat satellite data managed.


Figure 44. FY 2011 Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center data distributed.

Figure 45. FY 2011 Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center data managed.


Figure 46. FY 2011 other satellite data distributed.

Figure 47. FY 2011 other satellite data managed.


Figure 48. FY 2011 non-satellite data distributed.

Figure 49. FY 2011 non-satellite data managed.


Figure 50. FY 2011 geospatial data distributed.

Figure 51. FY 2011 geospatial data managed.


Coordination and Collaboration As the USGS endeavors to provide overall leadership for land imaging, both nationally and internationally, the USGS must continue to enhance leadership visibility, improve communications between and among the Federal and non-Federal sectors regarding remote sensing observations of the Earth, and promote excellence in remote sensing for understanding the Earth's land environment through education and training. The USGS continues to serve as the lead United States agency to the International Charter ―Space and Major Disasters.‖ EROS will continue to develop and offer a variety of ongoing education and training that together provide remotely sensed data users, and especially potential users, with opportunities to become more informed and educated about all aspects of the science and technology of land remote sensing. Key accomplishments are given in the following sections. USGS EROS Supports Record Number of Catastrophic Events

The USGS EROS Emergency Operations project provided remote sensing and geospatial product support for 48 domestic and international disaster events in FY 2011. The USGS served the International Charter Space and Major Disasters as the Charter Lead agency, leading the effort for the initial phases of the Charter evolution discussions and plans. The USGS requested activations of the International Charter Space and Major Disasters seven times on behalf of various domestic and international partners. Support was also provided for the Natural Resource Damage Assessment teams evaluating the effects of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Regional and National exercises. The Hazards Data Distribution System (HDDS) currently serves 135 terabytes of data representing over 4.5 million files covering over 640 baseline and disaster events. HDDS (fig. 52 and 53) supplied data are available to the general public (108 terabytes – 4,107,554 files) except for any licensed imagery which is available only to the response community (27 terabytes – 440,524 files). The HDDS has provided distribution services for over 14 terabytes of imagery, representing 490,000 files, to the disaster response community in FY 2011. The following list of events were supported in FY 2011 including floods, tsunamis, volcanoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, landslides, snowstorms, cyclone, typhoons, and oil spills. 201010_Floods_Thailand 201104_Floods_Midwest_US

201010_NRDA (Gulf Oil Spill) 201104_Floods_Namibia

201010_Tsunami_Indonesia 201104_Tornadoes_Southeast_US

201010_Volcano_Indonesia 201105_Fires_Canada

201011_Hurricane_Tomas 201105_Tornadoes_AR

201012_Fire_Israel 201105_Tornadoes_Minneapolis_MN

201012_Floods_Colombia 201105_Tornadoes_MO


201012_Floods_Panama 201105_Tornadoes_OK

201101_Earthquake_Pakistan 201106_Fires_AZ_CO_NM

201101_Floods_Australia 201106_Fires_FL

201101_Floods_Brazil 201106_Floods_MissouriRiver_US

201101_NRDA (Gulf Oil Spill) 201106_Floods_ND

201101_Tornadoes_MO 201106_Floods_Northeast_US_CA

201102_Cyclone_Yasi 201106_Tornadoes_CT_MA

201102_Earthquake_New_Zealand 201106_Volcano_Chile

201102_Floods_Mozambique 201107_Floods_South_Korea

201102_Landslide_Bolivia 201107_NRDA (Gulf Oil Spill)

201102_Landslide_Turkey 201108_Floods_Nigeria

201102_Snowstorm_Korea 201108_Hurricane_Irene

201103_Earthquake_Tsunami_Japan 201108_Hurricane_Irene_Charter

201103_Tsunami_WestCoast_US 201109_Fires_Texas

201104_Fires_MX_TX 201109_Typhoon_Japan

201104_Floods_Central_US

For further information, contact Wayne Miller, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 52. The screenshot of the Hazards Data Distribution System graphical user interface illustrates how user is aided in searching and obtaining data over their event, providing multiple methods for obtaining geographically retrievable imagery literally in hours after it is received at EROS.



Figure 53. The screenshot illustrates the Hazards Data Distribution System making a preview image and metadata easily available so the user is able to determine very rapidly if they want to download the data. USGS Operations and Data Support for Outside Collaborators The USGS EROS Center supports several outside collaborators at different levels (fig. 54). For some agencies the Center ingests, archives, and distributes collaborator data. A good example of this business model is represented by the data received from the U.S. Air Force Eagle Vision project. In other cases, the Center supports the collaborator with the computer room facilities and allows them to place equipment on site to process data such as the activities under way with the National Guard Bureau and the National Interagency Fire Center. With the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency‘s (FEMA) Flood Map Modernization program, the Center provides services that allow their agencies direct access to our archives for operational purposes. Another service extended to outside collaborators involves data capture and archive processing support. In project efforts like the NPS, USFWS, and the Farm Services Agency‘s Aerial Photography Field Office (APFO) Center, resources are involved in converting analog photo media to a digital form for long term archiving and to improve data access. Once the USFWS, APFO, and NPS film has been scanned, the resulting digital data are made available on EarthExplorer. This service provides data backups to data collection, promotes data access, and allows the freedom to remove film media from the EROS archive as deemed necessary by the USGS Records Management Plan.


Lastly the Emergency Operations Ingest System and the Hazards Data Distribution Systems are designed to meet their specific needs of FEMA and are used to provided information to first responders in times of emergency. All of these examples highlight the various levels of service provided by the Center to meet the unique needs of the USGS outside collaborators. For further information, contact Wayne Miller, USGS EROS, [email protected].

Figure 54. The illustration depicts some of various outside collaborators supported by the USGS EROS Center. Center Support Activities Center support activities at the USGS EROS provides a wide range of services for numerous and highly complex science, engineering, and operational projects, diverse contracts, intricate partner and customer relationships, and national and international activities. Key accomplishments are given in the following sections.



Making Science Visible The Communications and Outreach (C&O) project at the USGS EROS Center utilizes a multi-channel network to present, promote, and highlight USGS science and remote sensing research locally and nationwide. C&O oversees social media, publications, news releases, media contact, graphics, the EROS web presence, and conference support. A major achievement for C&O was the completion of the Tracking Change over Time educational packet. Geography, map reading, earth science, and problem solving are used to get students involved and excited about studying the changes in the Earth‘s surface. Intended for students in grades 5-8, Tracking Change over Time was developed to be used as both a teacher-led class lesson and a student self-guided tutorial. The release of Earth as Art 3 brought attention to the Landsat program and the world of remote sensing. The newest in the series of imagery highlighting the grandeur of the Earth‘s landscape, Earth as Art 3 focuses on Landsat data through the years. Traveling displays are on display at the Library of Congress and colleges and universities around the country. The development and launch of the new EROS internal website, the EROS history project website, adding the Image of the Week and Earth As Art 3 to the EROS Image Gallery, and Views of the News, a new feature on the EROS external website highlighting USGS imagery of current news stories, also headed up C&O‘s FY 2011 list of accomplishments. The year saw a growth in communicating the mission of EROS through use of the USGS Information Product Data System. Topping the list of the 259 approved publications were abstracts, journal articles, posters, presentation slides, website content, and conference papers. The Center‘s Don Lee Kulow Memorial Library provided more than 1,600 literature and reference deliverables, and EROS welcomed nearly 4,300 visitors and provided 260 tours. C&O also developed graphics in support of USGS headquarters‘ work involving the earthquake in Japan and disasters across the nation including floods, fires, drought, and tornado damage. Additional support was provided in the development of Image of the Week posters, Views of the News before and after imagery, current event posters, conference posters and backdrops, and publications. C&O coordinated EROS staff participation at six USGS-sponsored conferences around the Nation – the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) Annual Conference, the Esri International User Conference, and the National Science Teacher Association National Conference. EROS support included designing exhibit


backdrops, staffing; supplying handouts that highlight EROS science and activities; and individual demonstrations to participants on searching and downloading web-enabled imagery through EarthExplorer and GloVis. Closer to home, C&O coordinated staff participation in eight local or regional conferences and expos – the ASPRS Fall Conference, the Sioux Falls Women In Science Conference, the South Dakota State University Annual Geography Convention, the Yankton Women in Science Conference, the Western South Dakota Hydrology Conference, the Government on Display, and the Sioux Empire Agriculture Day. For further information, contact Janice Nelson, USGS EROS, [email protected]. Support Service Contracts at the USGS EROS Since the early 1970s, the USGS EROS Center has been staffed by a small number of Federal employees, who direct the work of the Center, while using support service contracts to carry out the majority of the Center‘s work. While the technical support services contract (TSSC) is by far the largest service contract at the Center, several other USGS service contracts are used at EROS for scientific research and applications, satellite flight operations, facility maintenance, physical security, and custodial services. Over a 40-year period, the purpose of service contracting at EROS always has been to conduct the mission science and operations of the Center under the leadership of the USGS. The Center‘s work is requirements driven. Results management and performance based contracting are key business practices used. The current TSSC is an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Task Order contract. The TSSC‘s approximately 390 employees provided extensive and varied support critical to the USGS EROS mission and responsibilities in science, research, remote sensing, and geographic data and information operations. A total of 91 task orders were awarded during the base year of the new IDIQ contract resulting in a total of 307 contract actions. The first option year was awarded on June 1, 2011, with 53 active task orders. Many contract management and administration challenges were encountered and overcome during the base year including the deployment of the Federal government‘s Financial and Business Management System (FBMS) to the USGS in November 2010; a 6-week medical leave of the Contracting Officer 1 month after FBMS rolled out, resulting in an a backlog of over 200 contract actions upon her return; and a delay in paying invoices, resulting in at one time over $8 million of unpaid invoices. Working closely with the USGS Office of Acquisitions and Grants and the USGS Office of Financial Management, both backlogs were eliminated. The 26 employees of the Scientific Support Services Contract (SSSC) provide comprehensive support and expertise in advanced and specialized scientific research



critical to assisting the USGS EROS in fulfilling its science mission nationally and internationally. The SSSC has successfully completed the first 3 years of the contract, with the final option year having been exercised on March 31, 2011. During FY 2011, two major Federal mandates occurred, which had a direct impact on contract management and administration of government furnished property to the TSSC and SSSC. First, DOI released its new policy stating desktops, laptops, and servers would become system-controlled property; and second, DOI began the deployment to USGS of FBMS. In order for EROS to comply with these mandates, a USGS Industrial Property Management Specialist was hired to ensure proper management and tracking of all government furnished property provided to the TSSC and SSSC. A comprehensive ―touch‖ inventory of TSSC and SSSC government furnished property was successfully completed meeting the mandated requirements. Performance management of the Center‘s contractor-related work requirements is a joint effort of the USGS Contracting Officer, the Contracting Officer‘s Representative, and the Center‘s management and project teams. Contractor performance criteria are tailored to meet USGS project milestones, deliverables, and performance factors. For further information, contact Joy Hood, USGS EROS, [email protected]. Computer Room Study Conducted – How much can we plug in before there’s a problem?

The USGS EROS has three computer rooms, which house a variety of project servers, storage devices, and racks of equipment – key resources needed to successfully achieve the mission and also support tenants. Historically, EROS was fortunate to have a large computing capacity. Capacity is defined as the amount of electricity, cooling capability, and uninterrupted power supply coverage that exists within the three computer rooms. Until recently, EROS was able to add equipment and upgrades with no visible impact. In 2010, it became apparent that growth in the computer rooms was happening ad hoc, without a long range roadmap to prepare for future growth in a logical way. EROS was rapidly approaching the scenario of not being able to add more project equipment to the computer rooms because the rooms had run out of capacity. As an analogy, in our homes we routinely plug appliances into electrical outlets without thinking about the wiring and load structures behind the visible wall outlet. We may not think about how many appliances are plugged in until a fuse blows and then we realize there is a problem. To avoid a similar scenario within the computer rooms, the Administrative Services Branch‘s Facilities Team initiated procurement of a technical study to design a plan for EROS growth. In July 2011, the procured company started work, and their final report is due October 2011. The report will provide guidance on how, and when, to move forward to put utility capacity in place ahead of computer room needs. It will also



include information for ―greening‖ the Center by looking at EPA Energy Star Rated Facilities. The report will identify no cost, and low cost actions the Center can make now, as well as recommendations for longer term efficiencies. With this final report, EROS can plan for and anticipate support needs for future expansion. This study will enable EROS to be proactive in managing how many ―appliances can be plugged in at any one time‖ and will help the Center avoid having a ―fuse blow‖ or not having the capacity to support a new computing request. For further information, contact Rodney Paulson, USGS EROS, [email protected]. Credit Card Transaction Log In FY 2011, the USGS EROS Center purchased approximately $1.5 million of equipment, materials and services with government credit cards. Credit cards may only be used for purchases under $3,000 so this total translates into 1,700 individual orders. EROS is unique when compared to many other USGS Centers in that it requires such a large volume of credit card orders. The official USGS Budget and Science Information System Plus (BASIS+) and FBMS do not provide a tracking mechanism for users on what has specifically been ordered via a credit card. FBMS doesn‘t know an order has been placed until a bill is received. The amount of outstanding or ―invisible‖ credit card orders becomes especially important to financial staff during year end close-out and is important to users throughout the year. In an effort to enhance tracking of the official FBMS and BASIS+ information, the Administrative Service Branch staff developed an electronic log just for capturing information on credit card orders. This tool is known as the Credit Card Transaction (CCT) Log. Users log their transactions into the CCT by entering their planned purchase and assigning the account number the purchase will be charged to. Users can print a document for their records that shows the items to be ordered and purchased and if they are ordering for someone else, get a signature of approval. They can use this document, which has a unique number, to give to the vendor which will help in matching up invoices with orders. The tool also provides the capability of entering payments made. For example, cell phone service often requires monthly payments, and tracking the monthly amounts and dates of payment can become confusing. The Center‘s Finance Team uses the CCT for ensuring the correct credit card information is entered into FBMS. When the credit card company‘s bill hits, Finance staff manually update the record in FBMS with the correct account to be charged. The USGS requires each credit card user to track their orders. The CCT provides a uniform, automated way for users to meet this requirement. Now EROS has one place any user can go to enter and review what they have ordered with a credit card. This saves everyone time and increases accuracy. For further information, contact Michael Sporrer, USGS EROS, [email protected].




Access ID Card Control System (a.k.a. Security Card Readers) In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security established a mandate, via the Presidential Directive 12, for all Federal agencies to issue the same type of official government identification (ID) cards. The Department of Interior (DOI) was given until December 31, 2010, to have this accomplished. The USGS EROS divided achieving this mandate into three phases:

Phase 1 – 2009, the EROS Center was established as a USAccess Credentialing Center with the equipment and systems to physically issue the new ID card. Phase 2 – 2010, EROS enrolled its entire government and contractor staff in the Program and started issuing the new card. Phase 3 – 2011, the Physical Access Control System to read new DOI Access ID cards was installed at EROS. The Control System is made up of multiple digital card readers located at each entrance to the facility controlled areas and at critical infrastructure locations (for example, computer rooms, archive storage areas, etc.) within the building (fig. 55).

Installing the Control System required a lengthy procurement action to identify requirements and specifications, select the vendor, and monitor vendor performance. As of May 2011, EROS has a fully functional, Directive 12 compliant, Physical Access Control System and is one of the few USGS activities to do so. This is important because EROS now has a system that can quickly identify who is authorized access throughout the facility. Prior to installing the card reader system security personnel had to manually review visitor and new staff requests for entry. The Control System streamlines this process – saving security staff time, increasing overall physical security, and reducing delays for staff. Within DOI only 80 percent of Federal employees and 45 percent of contractor staff have been issued the new ID card. Not only do all EROS staff have their new ID card – EROS also has the system in place to read the cards. EROS is now ready to address moving into the next step of using the new ID cards for accessing Government Information Systems. For further information, contact Eric Combs, USGS EROS, [email protected].



Figure 55. Example of a new DOI Access ID card and a digital card reader. Selected Research and Technical Publications The work cited was published in FY 2011. Names in bold type are affiliated with EROS. Online addresses are provided, where available. If a problem or an error is experienced while attempting to access an address, you may need to copy and paste that address into your Web browser for access. Journal Articles Albright, T.P., and Ode, D.J., 2011, Monitoring the dynamics of an invasive emergent

macrophyte community using operational remote sensing data: Hydrobiologia, v. 661, no. 1, p. 469-474. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10750-010-0537-8.)

Anderson, J.E., Ducey, M.J., Fast, A., Martin, M.E., Lepine, L., Smith, M.-L., Lee, T.D.,

Dubayah, R.O., Hofton, M.A., Hyde, P., Peterson, B.E., and Blair, J.B., 2011, Use of waveform lidar and hyperspectral sensors to assess selected spatial and structural patterns associated with recent and repeat disturbance and the abundance of sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) in a temperate mixed hardwood and conifer forest: Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, v. 5, citation identifier 053504, available only online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.3554639.

Angal, A., Chander, G., Xiong, X., Choi, T., and Wu, A., 2011, Characterization of the

Sonoran desert as a radiometric calibration target for Earth observing sensors: Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, v. 5, no. 1, citation identifier 059502, available only online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.3613963.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10750-010-0537-8

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10750-010-0537-8

http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.3554639

http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.3613963


Archibald, S., Scholes, R.J., Roy, D.P., Roberts, G., and Boschetti, L., 2010, Southern African fire regimes as revealed by remote sensing: International Journal of Wildland Fire, v. 19, no. 7, p. 861-878. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/WF10008.)

Auch, R.F., Sayler, K.L., Napton, D.E., Taylor, J.L., and Brooks, M.S., 2011,

Ecoregional differences in late-20th-century land-use and land-cover change in the U.S. northern Great Plains: Great Plains Research, v. 21, no. 2, p. 231-243.

Barnes, C.A., and Roy, D.P., 2010, Radiative forcing over the conterminous United

States due to contemporary land cover land use change and sensitivity to snow and inter-annual albedo variability: Journal of Geophysical Research G—Biogeosciences, v. 115, citation number G04033. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010JG001428.)

Bartelt, P.E., Klaver, R.W., and Porter, W.P., 2010, Modeling amphibian energetics,

habitat suitability, and movements of western toads, Anaxyrus (=Bufo) boreas, across present and future landscapes: Ecological Modelling, v. 221, no. 22, p. 2675-2686. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2010.07.009.)

Bhattarai, B., and Giri, C.P., 2011, Assessment of mangrove forests in the Pacific

region using Landsat imagery: Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, v. 5, citation identifier 053509, available only online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.3563584.

Biggs, J., Lu, Z., Fournier, T., and Freymueller, J.T., 2010, Magma flux at Okmok

Volcano, Alaska, from a joint inversion of continuous GPS, campaign GPS, and interferometric synthetic aperture radar: Journal of Geophysical Research B—Solid Earth, v. 115, p. 12401-12401. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010JB007577.)

Boken, V.K., Easson, G.L., and Rowland, J.D., 2010, Vegetation monitoring for

Guatemala—a comparison between simulated VIIRS and MODIS satellite data: Geocarto International, v. 25, no. 8, p. 617-627. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10106049.2010.519786.)

Broich, M., Hansen, M.C., Potapov, P., Adusei, B., Lindquist, E., and Stehman, S.V.,

2011, Time-series analysis of multi-resolution optical imagery for quantifying forest cover loss in Sumatra and Kalimantan, Indonesia: International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, v. 13, no. 2, p. 277-291. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2010.11.004.)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/WF10008

http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010JG001428

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2010.07.009

http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.3563584

http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010JB007577

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10106049.2010.519786

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2010.11.004


Brown, M.E., Ouyang, H., Habib, S., Shrestha, B., Shrestha, M., Panday, P., Tzortziou, M., Policelli, F., Artan, G.A., Giriraj, A., Bajracharya, S.R., and Racoviteanu, A., 2010, HIMALA—climate impacts on glaciers, snow, and hydrology in the Himalayan region: Mountain Research and Development, v. 30, no. 4, p. 401-404. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-10-00071.1.)

Cao, C.X., Uprety, S., Xiong, J., Ungar, S., Wu, A., Jing, P., Smith, D., Chander, G.,

and Fox, N., 2010, Establishing the Antarctic Dome C community reference standard site towards consistent measurements from Earth observation satellites: Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, v. 36, no. 5, p. 498-513. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.5589/m10-075.)

Chander, G., and Teillet, P.M., 2010, Introduction to the special issue—terrestrial

reference standard test sites for postlaunch calibration: Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, v. 36, no. 5, p. iii-iv. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.5589/m10-902.)

Chen, J., Zhu, X., Vogelmann, J.E., Gao, F., and Jin, S., 2011, A simple and effective

method for filling gaps in Landsat ETM+ SLC-off images: Remote Sensing of Environment, v. 115, no. 4, p. 1053-1064. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2010.12.010.)

Chen, X., Liu, S., Zhu, Z., Vogelmann, J.E., Li, Z., and Ohlen, D.O., 2011, Estimating

aboveground forest biomass carbon and fire consumption in the U.S. Utah High Plateaus using data from the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, Landsat, and LANDFIRE: Ecological Indicators, v. 11, no. 1, p. 140-148. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2009.03.013.)

Chuang, T.-W., Hildreth, M.B., Vanroekel, D.L., and Wimberly, M.C., 2011, Weather

and land cover influences on mosquito populations in Sioux Falls, South Dakota: Journal of Medical Entomology, v. 48, no. 3, p. 669-679. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1603/me10246.)

Dieye, A.M., Roy, D.P., Hanan, N.P., Liu, S., Hansen, M.C., and Touré, A., 2011,

Sensitivity analysis of the GEMS soil organic carbon model to land cover land use classification uncertainties under different climate scenarios in Senegal: Biogeosciences Discussions, v. 8, no. 4, p. 6589-6635, available only online at http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/bgd-8-6589-2011.

Disney, M.I., Lewis, P., Gomez-Dans, J., Roy, D.P., Wooster, M., and Lajas, D., 2011,

3D radiative transfer modelling of fire impacts on a two-layer savanna system: Remote Sensing of Environment, v. 115, no. 8, p. 1866-1881. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2011.03.010.)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-10-00071.1

http://dx.doi.org/10.5589/m10-075

http://dx.doi.org/10.5589/m10-902

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2010.12.010

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2009.03.013

http://dx.doi.org/10.1603/me10246

http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/bgd-8-6589-2011



Duda, K.A., and Jones, B.K., 2011, USGS remote sensing coordination for the 2010 Haiti earthquake: Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, v. 77, no. 9, p. 899-907. (Also available online at http://www.asprs.org/PE-RS-Journal/.)

Euliss Jr., N.H., Smith, L.M., Liu, S., Duffy, W.G., Faulkner, S.P., Gleason, R.A., and

Eckles, S.D., 2011, Integrating estimates of ecosystem services from conservation programs into data-assimilation models for decision makers—the vision for CEAP—wetlands: Ecological Applications, v. 21, no. 3, Suppl. S, p. S128-S134. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/09-0285.1.)

Euliss Jr., N.H., Smith, L.M., Liu, S., Feng, M., Mushet, D.M., Auch, R.F., and

Loveland, T.R., 2010, The need for simultaneous evaluation of ecosystem services and land use change: Environmental Science and Technology, v. 44, no. 20, p. 7761-7763. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es102761c.)

Feng, M., Liu, S., Euliss Jr., N.H., Young, C.J., and Mushet, D.M., 2011, Prototyping an

online wetland ecosystem services model using open model sharing standards: Environmental Modelling and Software, v. 26, no. 4, p. 458-468. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2010.10.008.)

Fritz, S., You, L., Bun, A., See, L., McCallum, I., Schill, C., Perger, C., Liu, J., Hansen,

M.C., and Obersteiner, M., 2011, Cropland for sub-Saharan Africa—a synergistic approach using five land cover data sets: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 38, no. 4, citation number L04404. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010gl046213.)

Fry, J.A., Xian, G., Jin, S., Dewitz, J.A., Homer, C.G., Yang, L., Barnes, C.A., Herold,

N.D., and Wickham, J.D., 2011, Completion of the 2006 National Land Cover Database for the conterminous United States: Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, v. 77, no. 9, p. 858-864. (Also available online at http://www.asprs.org/PE-RS-Journal/.)

Funk, C.C., 2011, We thought trouble was coming: Nature, v. 476, no. 7358, p. 7. (Also

available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/476007a.) Gallant, A.L., Sadinski, W., Roth, M.F., and Rewa, C.A., 2011, Changes in historical

Iowa land cover as context for assessing the environmental benefits of current and future conservation efforts on agricultural lands: Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, v. 66, no. 3, p. 67A-77A. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.2489/jswc.66.3.67A.)

Gallo, K.P., Hale, R.C., Tarpley, D., and Yu, Y., 2011, Evaluation of the relationship

between air and land surface temperature under clear- and cloudy-sky conditions: Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, v. 50, no. 3, p. 767-775. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2010jamc2460.1.)

http://www.asprs.org/PE-RS-Journal/

http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/09-0285.1

http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es102761c

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2010.10.008

http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010gl046213


http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/476007a

http://dx.doi.org/10.2489/jswc.66.3.67A

http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2010jamc2460.1


Giri, C.P., Ochieng, E., Tieszen, L.L., Zhu, Z., Singh, A., Loveland, T.R., Masek, J., and Duke, N., 2011, Status and distribution of mangrove forests of the world using earth observation satellite data: Global Ecology and Biogeography, v. 20, no. 1, p. 154-159. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00584.x.)

Grovenburg, T.W., Jacques, C.N., Klaver, R.W., DePerno, C.S., Brinkman, T.J.,

Swanson, C.C., and Jenks, J.A., 2011, Influence of landscape characteristics on migration strategies of white-tailed deer: Journal of Mammalogy, v. 92, no. 3, p. 534-543. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1644/09-mamm-a-407.1.)

Grovenburg, T.W., Jacques, C.N., Klaver, R.W., and Jenks, J.A., 2011, Drought effect

on selection of conservation reserve program grasslands by white-tailed deer on the Northern Great Plains: American Midland Naturalist, v. 166, no. 1, p. 147-162. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1674/0003-0031-166.1.147.)

Grovenburg, T.W., Swanson, C.C., Jacques, C.N., Deperno, C.S., Klaver, R.W., and

Jenks, J.A., 2011, Female white-tailed deer survival across ecoregions in Minnesota and South Dakota: American Midland Naturalist, v. 165, no. 2, p. 426-435. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1674/0003-0031-165.2.426.)

Grovenburg, T.W., Swanson, C.C., Jacques, C.N., Klaver, R.W., Brinkman, T.J., Burris,

B.M., Deperno, C.S., and Jenks, J.A., 2011, Survival of white-tailed deer neonates in Minnesota and South Dakota: Journal of Wildlife Management, v. 75, no. 1, p. 213-220. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.20.)

Hale, R.C., Gallo, K.P., Tarpley, D., and Yu, Y., 2011, Characterization of variability at

in situ locations for calibration/validation of satellite-derived land surface temperature data: Remote Sensing Letters, v. 2, no. 1, p. 41-50. (Also available online at http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/01431161.2010.490569.)

Hansen, M.C., Egorov, A., Roy, D.P., Potapov, P., Ju, J., Turubanova, S.,

Kommareddy, I., and Loveland, T.R., 2011, Continuous fields of land cover for the conterminous United States using Landsat data—first results from the Web-Enabled Landsat Data (WELD) project: Remote Sensing Letters, v. 2, no. 4, p. 279-288. (Also available online at http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/01431161.2010.519002.)

Harrison, L., Michaelsen, J., Funk, C.C., and Husak, G., 2011, Effects of temperature

changes on maize production in Mozambique: Climate Research, v. 46, no. 3, p. 211-222. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.3354/cr00979.)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00584.x

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00584.x

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1674/0003-0031-166.1.147

http://dx.doi.org/10.1674/0003-0031-165.2.426

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.20

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Huang, C., Thomas, N., Goward, S.N., Masek, J.G., Zhu, Z., Townshend, J.R.G., and Vogelmann, J.E., 2010, Automated masking of cloud and cloud shadow for forest change analysis using Landsat images: International Journal of Remote Sensing, v. 31, no. 20, p. 5449-5464. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01431160903369642.)

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Books

Ramachandran, B., Justice, C.O., and Abrams, M.J., eds., 2010, Land remote sensing

and global environmental change—NASA's Earth Observing System and the science of ASTER and MODIS: New York, Springer, 873 p. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6749-7.)

United Nations Environment Programme, 2010, Africa water atlas: Nairobi, Kenya,

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Book Chapters Carroll, M., Townshend, J., Hansen, M.C., DiMiceli, C., Sohlberg, R., and Wurster, K.,

2010, MODIS vegetative cover conversion and vegetation continuous fields, chap. 32 of Ramachandran, B., Justice, C.O., and Abrams, M.J., eds., Land remote sensing and global environmental change—NASA's Earth Observing System and the science of ASTER and MODIS: New York, Springer, p. 727-748. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6749-7_32.)

Daucsavage, J., Kaminski, M., Ramachandran, B., Jenkerson, C.B., Sprenger, K.,

Faust, R.I., and Rockvam, T., 2010, ASTER and MODIS land data management at the Land Processes, and National Snow and Ice Data Centers, chap. 8 of Ramachandran, B., Justice, C.O., and Abrams, M.J., eds., Land remote sensing and global environmental change—NASA's Earth Observing System and the science of ASTER and MODIS: New York, Springer, p. 167-182. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6749-7_8.)

Justice, C.O., Giglio, L., Roy, D.P., Boschetti, L., Csiszar, I., Davies, D., Korontzi, S.,

Schroeder, W., O'Neal, K., and Morisette, J., 2010, MODIS-derived global fire products, chap. 29 of Ramachandran, B., Justice, C.O., and Abrams, M.J., eds., Land remote sensing and global environmental change—NASA's Earth Observing System and the science of ASTER and MODIS: New York, Springer, p. 663-682. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6749-7_29.)

Masuoka, E., Roy, D.P., Wolfe, R., Morisette, J., Sinno, S., Teague, M., Saleous, N.,

Devadiga, S., Justice, C., and Nickeson, J., 2010, MODIS land data products—generation, quality assurance and validation, chap. 22 of Ramachandran, B., Justice, C.O., and Abrams, M.J., eds., Land remote sensing and global environmental change—NASA's Earth Observing System and the science of ASTER and MODIS: New York, Springer, p. 511-534. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6749-7_22.)

Potapov, P.V., Hansen, M.C., and Stehman, S.V., 2011, High-latitude forest cover loss

in northern Eurasia, 2000-2005, chap. 3 of Gutman, G., and Reissel, A., eds., Eurasian Arctic land cover and land use in a changing climate: New York, Springer, p. 37-51. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9118-5_3.)

Stoker, J.M., Turnipseed, D.P., and Wilson, K.V., 2011, Using regional scale pre- and

post hurricane Katrina lidar for monitoring and modeling, chap. 30 of Lupo, A., ed., Recent hurricane research—climate, dynamics, and societal impacts: Vukovar, Croatia, InTech, p. 575-592. (Also available online at http://www.intechopen.com/articles/show/title/using-regional-scale-pre-and-post-hurricane-katrina-lidar-for-monitoring-and-modeling.)

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Townshend, J., Lathan, J., Justice, C., Janetos, A., Conant, R., Arino, O., Balstad, R., Belward, A., Feuquay, J., Liu, J., Ojima, D., Schmullius, C., Singh, A., and Tschirley, J., 2010, International coordination of satellite land observations—integrated observations of the land, chap. 36 of Ramachandran, B., Justice, C.O., and Abrams, M.J., eds., Land remote sensing and global environmental change—NASA's Earth Observing System and the science of ASTER and MODIS: New York, Springer, p. 837-858. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6749-7_36.)

Watanabe, H., Bailey, G.B., Duda, K.A., Kannari, Y., Miura, A., and Ramachandran,

B., 2010, The ASTER data system—an overview of the data products in Japan and in the United States, chap. 11 of Ramachandran, B., Justice, C.O., and Abrams, M.J., eds., Land remote sensing and global environmental change—NASA's Earth Observing System and the science of ASTER and MODIS: New York, Springer, p. 233-244. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6749-7_11.)

Xian, G., Homer, C.G., and Yang, L., 2011, Development of the USGS National Land

Cover Database over two decades, chap. 2 of Weng, Q.H., ed., Advances in environmental remote sensing—sensors, algorithms, and applications: Boca Raton, Fla., CRC Press, p. 525-543.

Reports USGS Fact Sheets Brown, J.F., 2010, Drought monitoring with VegDRI: U.S. Geological Survey Fact

Sheet, 2010–3114, 2 p. (Also available online at http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/fs20103114.)

Funk, C.C., Eilerts, G., Verdin, J.P., Rowland, J.D., and Marshall, M., 2011, A climate

trend analysis of Sudan: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet, 2011-3072, 6 p. (Also available online at http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/fs20113072.)

Harrison, L., Funk, C.C., and Eilerts, G., 2011, Using observed warming to identify

hazards to Mozambique maize production: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet, 2011-3110, 4 p. (Also available online at http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/fs20113110.)

USGS General Information Products Jones, B.K., 2011, The international charter for space and major disasters—project

manager training: U.S. Geological Survey General Information Product, 131, 1 p. (Also available online at http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70004919.)

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Queija, V.R., 2010, Mount St. Helens Lidar: U.S. Geological Survey General Information Product, 116, 1 p. (Also available online at http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/gip116.)

USGS Open File Reports Burkett, V.R., Taylor, I.L., Belnap, J., Cronin, T.M., Dettinger, M.D., Frazier, E.L.,

Haines, J.W., Kirtland, D.A., Loveland, T.R., Milly, P.C.D., O'Malley, R., and Thompson, R.S., 2011, Public review draft—USGS global change science strategy—a framework for understanding and responding to climate and land-use change: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2011-1033, 32 p. (Also available online at http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/ofr20111033.)

Danielson, J.J., and Gesch, D.B., 2011, Global multi-resolution terrain elevation data

2010 (GMTED2010): U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report, 2011–1073, 26 p. (Also available online at http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/ofr20111073.)

Nelson, J.S., comp., 2011, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources

Observation and Science (EROS) Center—fiscal year 2010 annual report: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report, 2011-1057, 118 p. (Also available online at http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/ofr20111057.)

USGS Professional Papers Lee, C.-W., Lu, Z., Jung, H.-S., Won, J.-S., and Dzurisin, D., 2010, Surface deformation

of Augustine Volcano, 1992–2005, from multiple-interferogram processing using a refined small baseline subset (SBAS) interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) approach, chap. 18 of Power, J.A., Coombs, M.L., and Freymueller, J.T., eds., The 2006 eruption of Augustine Volcano, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper, 2010-1769, p. 453-465, available only online at http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/pp1769.

USGS Scientific Investigations Maps Heidemann, H.K., 2011, Lidar quality assurance challenges and solutions [abs.], in

Sieverling, J.B., and Dietterle, J., eds., Proceedings of the U.S. Geological Survey Eighth Biennial Geographic Information Science Workshop and First The National Map Users Conference, Denver, Colorado, May 10-13, 2011: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report, 2011-5053.

Heidemann, H.K., 2011, The USGS-NGP lidar guidelines and base specification [abs.],

in Sieverling, J.B., and Dietterle, J., eds., Proceedings of the U.S. Geological Survey Eighth Biennial Geographic Information Science Workshop and First The

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National Map Users Conference, Denver, Colorado, May 10-13, 2011: U.S. eological Survey Scientific Investigations Report, 2011-5053.

Poppenga, S.K., 2011, National Elevation Dataset—applications of The National Map

[abs.], in Sieverling, J.B., and Dietterle, J., eds., Proceedings of the U.S. Geological Survey Eighth Biennial Geographic Information Science Workshop and First The National Map Users Conference, Denver, Colorado, May 10-13, 2011: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report, 2011-5053.

Stitt, S., Dwyer, J.L., Dye, D., and Josberger, E., 2011, Terrestrial essential climate

variables (ECVs) at a glance: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map, 2011-3155, (1 plate; no scale). (Also available online at http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/sim3155.)

USGS Scientific Investigations Reports Zhu, Z., ed., Bergamaschi, B., Bernknopf, R., Clow, D., Dye, D., Faulkner, S., Forney,

W., Gleason, R., Hawbaker, T., Liu, J., Liu, S., Prisley, S., Reed, B., Reeves, M., Rollins, M.G., Sleeter, B., Sohl, T.L., Stackpoole, S., Stehman, S., Striegl, R., Wein, A., and Zhu, Z., 2010, A method for assessing carbon stocks, carbon sequestration, and greenhouse-gas fluxes in ecosystems of the United States under present conditions and future scenarios: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report, 2010-5233, 190 p. plus nine appendixes. (Also available online at http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/sir20105233.)

USGS General Information Products U.S. Geological Survey, 2011, Tracking change over time: U.S. Geological Survey

General Information Product, 133, variously paged. (Also available online at http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/gip133.)

Non-USGS Discussion Paper Tieszen, L.L., Tappan, G.G., Tan, Z., and Tachie-Obeng, E., 2011, Land cover

change, biogeochemical modelling of carbon stocks,and climate change in West Africa, in Bombelli, A., and Valentini, R., eds., Africa and the carbon cycle—proceedings of the Open Science Conference on ―Africa and Carbon Cycle—the CarboAfrica project‖ Accra (Ghana) 25-27 November 2008: FAO World Soil Resources Reports, No. 105, p. 75-83. (Also available online at http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/i2240e/i2240e00.htm.)

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Conference Papers

Chander, G., Sampath, A., Angal, A., Choi, T., and Xiong, X., 2010, Monitoring the long term stability of the IRS-P6 AWiFS sensor using the Sonoran and RVPN sites, in Xiong, X., Kim, C., and Shimoda, H., eds., Earth Observing Missions and Sensors—Development, Implementation, and Characterization, Incheon, Republic of Korea, 13 October 2010, Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 7862: Bellingham, Wash., Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), article number 78620K. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.869537.)

El-Gayar, O., Deokar, A., Michels, L., and Fosnight, E.A., 2011, The development of an

EDSS—lessons learned and implications for DSS research, in Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 44th, Kauai, Hawaii, 4-7 January 2011, Proceedings: Piscataway, N.J., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), article number 5718559. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2011.405.)

Tieszen, L.L., Owens, V., Mitchell, R., Jenkins, R., Gerik, T., Franzluebbers, A., Ferrell,

J., Doolittle, J., Bliss, N.B., and Archer, D., 2011, Great Plains regional roadmap, in Braun, R., Karlen, D., and Johnson, D., eds., Sustainable alternative fuel feedstock opportunities, challenges and roadmaps for six U.S. regions, Sustainable Feedstocks for Advanced Biofuels Workshop, Atlanta, Ga., 28-30 September 2010, Proceedings: Ankeny, Iowa, Soil and Water Conservation Society, p. 401-405. (Also available online at http://www.swcs.org/roadmap.)

Zhang, J., Liu, S., Hu, Y., and Tian, Y., 2011, Study on a pattern classification method

of soil quality based on simplified learning sample dataset, in International conference on intelligent computation technology and automation (ICICTA), 2011, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, 28-29 March 2011, 2: Piscataway, N.J., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), p. 194-197. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICICTA.2011.339.)

Zhang, Z., Jiang, H., Liu, J., Zhu, Q., Wei, X., Jiang, Z., Zhou, G., Zhang, X., and Han,

J., 2011, Modeling the spatial-temporal dynamics of net primary production in Yangtze River Basin using IBIS model, in International Conference on Geoinformatics, 19th, Shanghai, China, 24-26 June 2011, Proceedings: Piscataway, N.J., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), article number 5981181. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/GeoInformatics.2011.5981181.)

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Conference Presentations Abdul-Aziz, O.I., Liu, S., Young, C.J., and Huang, S., 2010, Regional-scale

biogeochemical modeling of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from wetland ecosystems [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number B13A-0451. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Anderson, L., Finney, B.P., Guldager, N., Rover, J.A., Shapley, M., and Van Sistine,

D.R., 2010, Oxygen isotopes and hydroclimatic change in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, northeast Alaska (Invited) [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number GC24B-08. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Bliss, N.B., Waltman, S.W., and Neale, A.C., 2010, Detailed soil information for

hydrologic modeling in the conterminous United States [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number H43B-1227. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Boyte, S.P., Gu, Y., and Wylie, B.K., 2010, Dynamic modeling of ecosystem

performance to identify land suitable for biofuels development [abs.], in ACES—A Community on Ecosystem Services, Gila River Indian Community, Phoenix, Ariz., 6-9 December 2010, Abstract Book: U.S. Geological Survey and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, p. 32. (Also available online at http://www.conference.ifas.ufl.edu/aces/index.html.)

Boyte, S.P., Wylie, B.K., Homer, C.G., and Major, D.J., 2011, Mapping cheatgrass in

the Great Basin using 250-meter eMODIS NDVI [abs.], in Transcending borders—landscapes and legends, Society for Range Management, 64th Annual Meeting, Billings, Mont., 5-11 February 2011: Society for Range Management, unpaged. (Also available online at http://srm.conference-services.net/programme.asp?conferenceID=2289&action=prog_presenters.)

Boyte, S.P., Wylie, B.K., and Major, D.J., 2011, Mapping future big sagebrush

productivity and extent in a northern Great Basin rangeland ecosystem [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 38920. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

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Brown, J.F., Gallant, A.L., Sadinski, W., and Stricherz, B., 2010, Characterizing past variances, extremes, and trends in land surface phenology [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number B23G-0469. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Chen, M., Liu, S., Young, C.J., and Oeding, J., 2011, Trends and uncertainties of

carbon stocks and fluxes in the eastern ecoregions of the United States using smoothed ensemble Kalman Filter [abs.], in AmeriFlux Science Meeting and 3rd NACP All-Investigators Meeting, New Orleans, La., 31 Jan-4 Feb 2011, Poster Session III: Greenbelt, Md., AmeriFlux and North American Carbon Program, number F-121. (Also available online at http://www.nacarbon.org/meeting_2011/ab_intro.htm.)

Chen, M., Liu, S., and Yuan, W., 2010, Optimizing parameters of a terrestrial

ecosystem model against eddy covariance measurements from ten FLUXNET sites using smoothed ensemble Kalman Filter [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number B11B-0347. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Danielson, J.J., 2011, Creation of a topobathymetric model for the northern Gulf of

Mexico (NGOM) centered on Mobile Bay [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 35877. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

Doescher, C.J., Sohre, T., Behnke, J., Hall, A., Vermeer, J., and McManus, J., 2010,

Efficient and effective implementation of new data sets into the Distributed Active Archive Center, a land processes perspective [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number IN43B-1402. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Duda, K.A., 2010, ASTER expedited data services [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San

Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number IN31A-1275. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Fatoyinbo, T.E., Simard, M., and Giri, C.P., 2010, Carbon and 3D structure estimates of

neotropical mangrove forests from Lidar, InSAR and field data [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number B13A-0449. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)


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Faulkner, S., Sohl, T.L., Chivoiu, B., Liu, S., Bernknopf, R., Huang, S., Sleeter, B.M., and Wein, A., 2010, Ancillary effects of carbon sequestration strategies on ecosystem services [abs.], in ACES—A Community on Ecosystem Services, Gila River Indian Community, Phoenix, Ariz., 6-9 December 2010, Abstract Book: U.S. Geological Survey and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, p. 71. (Also available online at http://www.conference.ifas.ufl.edu/aces/index.html.)

Fry, J.A., Xian, G., Jin, S., and Homer, C.G., 2011, Completion of the National Land

Cover Database (NLCD) Products for circa 2006 [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 39878. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

Gesch, D.B., 2011, Accounting for elevation uncertainty in sea-level rise

assessments—how much land is really at risk? [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 37366. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

Gilmanov, T.G., Tieszen, L.L., Wylie, B.K., Zhang, L., and Howard, D.M., 2011,

Agricultural and grassland ecosystems of the North American Great Plains as sinks for atmospheric CO2—scaling-up long-term flux-tower measurements [abs.], in AmeriFlux Science Meeting and 3rd NACP All-Investigators Meeting, New Orleans, La., 31 Jan-4 Feb 2011, Poster Session IV: Greenbelt, Md., AmeriFlux and North American Carbon Program, number H-178. (Also available online at http://www.nacarbon.org/meeting_2011/ab_intro.htm.)

Giri, C.P., and Long, J.B., 2011, Mapping and monitoring Louisiana's mangroves in the

aftermath of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 38007. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

Giri, C.P., Ochieng, E., Tieszen, L.L., Zhu, Z., Singh, A., Loveland, T.R., and Duke,

N., 2010, Ecosystem goods and services and the status and distribution of mangrove forest of the world [abs.], in ACES—A Community on Ecosystem Services, Gila River Indian Community, Phoenix, Ariz., 6-9 December 2010, Abstract Book: U.S. Geological Survey and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, p. 84. (Also available online at http://www.conference.ifas.ufl.edu/aces/index.html.)








Gu, Y., Boyte, S.P., Wylie, B.K., and Tieszen, L.L., 2010, Ecosystem performance assessment for grasslands in the Greater Platte River basin—implications for cellulosic biofuel development [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number B23D-0412. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Gu, Y., Boyte, S.P., Wylie, B.K., and Tieszen, L.L., 2011, Identifying land suitable for

biofuel feedstocks by dynamic modeling of ecosystem performance [abs.], presentation at U.S. Geological Survey Biofuels Workshop, Reston, Va., 6-7 April 2011.

Gu, Y., and Wylie, B.K., 2011, The relationship between satellite-derived growing

season NDVI and SSURGO grassland productivity over the Greater Platte River Basin—connecting satellite observation to biomass productivity [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 34688. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

Headley, R.M., 2011, Expanding the reach of Landsat data by reducing barriers [abs.],

in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 37621. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

Hicke, J.A., Allen, C.D., Desai, A.R., Dietze, M., Hall, R.J., Hogg, T., Kashian, D.M.,

Moore, D.J.P., Raffa, K., Sturrock, R., and Vogelmann, J.E., 2011, The impacts of biotic disturbances on carbon budgets of North American forests [abs.], in AmeriFlux Science Meeting and 3rd NACP All-Investigators Meeting, New Orleans, La., 31 Jan-4 Feb 2011: AmeriFlux and North American Carbon Program, unpaged. (Also available online at http://www.nacarbon.org/meeting_2011/ab_intro.htm.)

Hicke, J.A., Allen, C.D., Desai, A.R., Dietze, M.C., Hall, R.J., Hogg, E.T., Kashian, D.M.,

Moore, D.J., Raffa, K., Sturrock, R., and Vogelmann, J.E., 2010, A review of carbon cycle impacts of biotic disturbances in North American forests [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number B42B-02. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Howard, D.M., Wylie, B.K., and Tan, Z., 2010, An assessment of agriculture land

classification in the Platte River basin, USA [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number B33C-0415. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)








Huang, S., Abdul-Aziz, O.I., Young, C.J., Dahal, D., and Liu, S., 2011, Simulating spatio-temporal water dynamics of landscape wetland complex for ecosystem services evaluation in Prairie Pothole Region, USA [abs.], in Western South Dakota Hydrology Conference, Rapid City, S. Dak., 28 April 2011, Program and Abstracts: U.S. Geological Survey, South Dakota Water Science Center, p. 37. (Also available online at http://sd.water.usgs.gov/WSDconf/index.html.)

Huang, S., Liu, S., Abdul-Aziz, O.I., Young, C.J., Dahal, D., Feng, M., Chander, G.,

Rover, J.A., Ji, L., Wylie, B.K., and Wu, Y., 2010, Monitoring and predicting spatiotemporal water surface dynamics of topographic depressions in the prairie pothole region from remote sensing and hydrological models [abs.], in ACES—A Community on Ecosystem Services, Gila River Indian Community, Phoenix, Ariz., 6-9 December 2010, Abstract Book: U.S. Geological Survey and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, p. 104. (Also available online at http://www.conference.ifas.ufl.edu/aces/index.html.)

Hudson Dunn, A., Jones, J., and Brown, J.F., 2010, An intercomparison of annual

seasonality estimates in the Shenandoah National Park from 2000 to 2009 [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number B23G-0465. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Jenkerson, C.B., Meyer, D.J., Werpy, J., Evenson, K., and Merritt, M., 2010,

eMODIS expedited—overview of a near real time MODIS production system for operational vegetation monitoring [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number IN31A-1258. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Ji, L., Wylie, B.K., Nossov, D., Peterson, B.E., Waldrop, M.P., Hollingworth, T.N., and

Rover, J.A., 2010, Mapping aboveground biomass for interior Alaska using Landsat data and field measurements [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number B33G-0461. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Jin, S., Yang, L., Xian, G., Danielson, P., and Homer, C.G., 2010, A multi-index

integrated change detection method for updating the national land cover database [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number GC51F-0804. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

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Jones, B.K., and Lamb, R.M., 2010, Emergency satellite image delivery through international charter ‗Space and Major Disasters‘ [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number NH51C-1243. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Kline, K.L., 2011, Changing views of Earth from space—the Landsat imagery archive

[abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 40840. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

Lingelbach, A.T., and Kaufmann, J.E., 2011, Accuracy of identification of sinkholes

from LIDAR elevation data in the Buffalo National River region, Arkansas, USA [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 39878. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

Liu, S., Huang, S., Young, C.J., Feng, F., and Quenzer, R.J., 2010, EcoServ—a

community and web-service based modeling system for simultaneously quantifying multiple ecosystem services at the landscape to national scales [abs.], in ACES—A Community on Ecosystem Services, Gila River Indian Community, Phoenix, Ariz., 6-9 December 2010, Abstract Book: U.S. Geological Survey and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, p. 128. (Also available online at http://www.conference.ifas.ufl.edu/aces/index.html.)

Lokupitiya, E.Y., Denning, S., Anderson, R., Arain, M.A., Baker, I., Chen, G., Chen,

J.M., Ciais, P., Cook, D.R., Dietze, M., Fischer, M., Gonzalez-Meler, M.A., Grant, R., Jastrow, J.D., Katual, G., Kucharik, C., Lesht, B., Longhui, L., Liu, J., El Maayar, M., Matamala, R., Peylin, P., Price, D., Running, S.W., Sahoo, A., Schaefer, K., Sprintsin, M., Tian, H., Torn, M., Verbeeck, H., Verman, S.B., and Xue, Y., 2011, Comparison of observed and modeled carbon and energy fluxes for agricultural sites under NACP site-level interim synthesis [abs.], in AmeriFlux Science Meeting and 3rd NACP All-Investigators Meeting, New Orleans, La., 31 Jan-4 Feb 2011: AmeriFlux and North American Carbon Program, unpaged. (Also available online at http://www.nacarbon.org/meeting_2011/ab_intro.htm.)

Loveland, T.R., 2011, Major land use and land cover changes in the Conterminous

United States—1973-2000 [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 36999. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)








Maiersperger, T.K., Doescher, C.J., and Werpy, J., 2010, A timeline concept for presenting search results from heterogeneous remote sensing data collections [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number IN43A-1388. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Meyer, D.J., Doescher, C.J., Wolfe, R.E., Werpy, J., Sohre, T., and Ye, G., 2010,

Cross archive search, access and distribution enabling MODIS and beyond [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number IN43A-1387. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Mishra, V., Cherkauer, K.A., and Verdin, J.P., 2010, Supporting climatic trends of corn

and soybean production in the USA [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number PA21D-1661. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Neuenschwander, A.L., Peterson, B.E., and Nelson, R., 2010, Predicted canopy height

retrieval errors for the ICESat-2 mission (Invited) [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number B51J-03. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Ogle, S.M., Tristan, O.W., Schuh, A., Liu, S., Li, Z., Izaurralde, R.C., Bandaru, V.,

Cooley, D., and MCI Science Team, 2011, Comparing modeled cropland carbon dynamics from multiple contributions to the mid-continent intensive campaign [abs.], in AmeriFlux Science Meeting and 3rd NACP All-Investigators Meeting, New Orleans, La., 31 Jan-4 Feb 2011, Poster Session III: Greenbelt, Md., AmeriFlux and North American Carbon Program, number F-129. (Also available online at http://www.nacarbon.org/meeting_2011/ab_intro.htm.)

Ogle, S.M., West, T.O., Schuh, A., Cooley, D., Gurney, K.R., Heath, L.S., Smith, J., Liu,

S., Li, Z., Izaurralde, R.C., Bandaru, V., Breidt, F.J., Davis, K.J., and MCI Science Team, 2011, Inventory of CO2 flux for the mid-continent region of the United States [abs.], in AmeriFlux Science Meeting and 3rd NACP All-Investigators Meeting, New Orleans, La., 31 Jan-4 Feb 2011, Poster Session IV: Greenbelt, Md., AmeriFlux and North American Carbon Program, number H-194. (Also available online at http://www.nacarbon.org/meeting_2011/ab_intro.htm.)








Pedreros, D.H., Michaelsen, J., Carvalho, L.V., Funk, C.C., and Husak, G.J., 2010, The effect of El Niño on agricultural water balances in Guatemala [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number NH21A-1401. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Pervez, M.S., and Henebry, G.M., 2010, Rainfall observed over Bangladesh 2000-

2008—a comparison of spatial interpolation methods [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number 11B-0809. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Peterson, B.E., Wylie, B.K., Stoker, J.M., and Nossov, D., 2010, Lidar-based biomass

assessment for the Yukon River basin [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number B44C-07. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Poppenga, S.K., 2011, Generating surface flow features from 1-meter lidar-derived

digital elevation models [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 35022. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

Queija, V.R., 2011, Application of ground-based lidar for accuracy assessment in the

creation of topobathymetric model for the Northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM) [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 36209. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

Rover, J.A., Ji, L., Wylie, B.K., and Tieszen, L.L., 2010, Surface water extent trends in

interior Alaska (1979-2009) [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number H41B-1077. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Rover, J.A., Wylie, B.K., Ji, L., and Tieszen, L.L., 2011, Investigation of weather

influences on surface water extents in the Yukon Flats, Alaska [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 35671. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)









Rowland, J.D., and Budde, M.E., 2010, Near real-time operational use of eMODIS expedited NDVI for monitoring applications and famine early warning [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number IN31A-1256. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Sayler, K.L., 2011, Contemporary land cover and land use change in the eastern region

of the United States [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 37093. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

Schwalm, C.R., Williams, C.A., Schaefer, K., Anderson, R., Arain, M.A., Baker, I., Barr,

A., Black, T.A., Chen, G., Chen, J.M., Ciais, P., Davis, K.J., Desai, A.R., Dietze, M., Dragoni, D., Fischer, M.L., Flanagan, L.B., Grant, R., Gu, L., Hollinger, D.Y., Izaurralde, R.C., Kucharik, C., Lafleur, P., Law, B.E., Li, L., Li, Z., Liu, S., Lokupitiya, E.Y., Luo, Y., Ma, S., Margolis, H.A., Matamala, R., McCaughey, H.J., Monson, R.K., Oechel, W.C., Peng, C., Poulter, B., Price, D.T., Ricciuto, D.M., Riley, W.J., Sahoo, A.K., Sprintsin, M., Sun, J., Tian, H., Tonitto, C., Verbeeck, H., and Verma, S.B., 2011, Evaluating terrestrial biosphere models—comparing simulated and observed net ecosystem exchange [abs.], in AmeriFlux Science Meeting and 3rd NACP All-Investigators Meeting, New Orleans, La., 31 Jan-4 Feb 2011, Poster Session III: Greenbelt, Md., AmeriFlux and North American Carbon Program, number F-132. (Also available online at http://www.nacarbon.org/meeting_2011/ab_intro.htm.)

Senay, G.B., Pengra, B., Bohms, S., Singh, A., and Verdin, J.P., 2010, Africa-wide

water balance estimation using remote sensing and global weather datasets [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number H31H-1099. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Singh, R.K., Liu, S., and Tieszen, L.L., 2011, Can we have a universal light use

efficiency of vegetations? [abs.], in Towards upscaling flux information from towers to the globe, Fluxnet and Remote Sensing Open Workshop, Berkeley, Calif., 7-9 June 2011, Poster Abstracts: Oak Ridge, Tenn., FluxNet, p. 73. (Also available online at http://nature.berkeley.edu/biometlab/fluxnet2011/fluxwkshp.html.)

Singh, R.K., Liu, S., and Tieszen, L.L., 2010, Evapotranspiration and water use

efficiency of terrestrial ecosystems in the Great Plains [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number H31B-1005. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)





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Singh, R.K., Liu, S., and Tieszen, L.L., 2011, A hydrological perspective for site suitability of biofuels production using satellite images [abs.], in Western South Dakota Hydrology Conference, Rapid City, S. Dak., 28 April 2011, Program and Abstracts: U.S. Geological Survey, South Dakota Water Science Center, p. 38. (Also available online at http://sd.water.usgs.gov/WSDconf/index.html.)

Singh, R.K., Senay, G.B., Liu, S., and Tieszen, L.L., 2011, Validating

evapotranspiration maps of the conterminous USA utilizing AmeriFlux data [abs.], in AmeriFlux Science Meeting and 3rd NACP All-Investigators Meeting, New Orleans, La., 31 Jan-4 Feb 2011, Poster Session II: Greenbelt, Md., AmeriFlux and North American Carbon Program, number C-57. (Also available online at http://www.nacarbon.org/meeting_2011/ab_intro.htm.)

Sleeter, B.M., Sohl, T.L., Sayler, K.L., Bouchard, M.A., and Reker, R., 2010,

Development of national land-use/land-cover scenarios for ecological impact assessment [abs.], in ACES—A Community on Ecosystem Services, Gila River Indian Community, Phoenix, Ariz., 6-9 December 2010, Abstract Book: U.S. Geological Survey and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, p. 194. (Also available online at http://www.conference.ifas.ufl.edu/aces/index.html.)

Sohl, T.L., Reker, R., Sayler, K.L., Bouchard, M.A., and Sleeter, B.M., 2010,

Development of a spatially explicit land-use model for the assessment of biofuels [abs.], in ACES—A Community on Ecosystem Services, Gila River Indian Community, Phoenix, Ariz., 6-9 December 2010, Abstract Book: U.S. Geological Survey and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, p. 198. (Also available online at http://www.conference.ifas.ufl.edu/aces/index.html.)

Sohre, T., Duda, K.A., Meyer, D.J., and Behnke, J., 2010, ASTER Global DEM

contribution to GEOSS demonstrates open data sharing [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number IN11A-1066. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Sundquist, E.T., Ackerman, K.V., Stallard, R.F., and Bliss, N.B., 2011, Historical

influence of soil and water management on sediment and carbon budgets in the United States [abs.], in Geochemistry of the Earth's surface (GES-9), International Symposium, 9th, Boulder, Colo., 3-7 June 2011, Applied Geochemistry, v. 26, Suppl. 1: International Association for GeoChemistry, p. S529. (Also available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeochem.2011.03.118.)






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Tan, Z., 2010, Corn-based feedstock for biofuels—implications for agricultural sustainability [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number B11C-0365. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Tan, Z., 2011, Potential of using corn stover as biofuel production in the United States

[abs.], presentation at U.S. Geological Survey Biofuels Workshop, Reston, Va., 6-7 April 2011.

Tan, Z., 2011, Sustainable corn stover supply for biofuels production in the U.S. [abs.],

presentation at International Biomass Conference and Expo, St. Louis, Mo., 1-4 May 2011.

Tan, Z., and Liu, S., 2010, Impacts of corn-based biofuel production on soil fertility and

ecosystem sustainability [abs.], in ACES—A Community on Ecosystem Services, Gila River Indian Community, Phoenix, Ariz., 6-9 December 2010, Abstract Book: U.S. Geological Survey and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, p. 208. (Also available online at http://www.conference.ifas.ufl.edu/aces/index.html.)

Werpy, J., 2010, Experiences and challenges in Earth science software reuse [abs.], in

Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number IN53B-1176. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Wu, Y., and Liu, S., 2010, Different effects of corn ethanol and switchgrass-based

biofuels on soil erosion and nutrients loads in the Iowa River basin [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number H51D-0934. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)

Wu, Y., and Liu, S., 2011, Effects of land management change on water quantity and

quality in the James River Basin [abs.], in Western South Dakota Hydrology Conference, Rapid City, S. Dak., 28 April 2011, Program and Abstracts: U.S. Geological Survey, South Dakota Water Science Center, p. 62. (Also available online at http://sd.water.usgs.gov/WSDconf/index.html.)

Wylie, B.K., Rover, J.A., Murnahan, K., Long, J.B., Tieszen, L.L., and Brisco, B.,

2010, Boreal forest anomalies in the Yukon River Basin [abs.], in Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 December 2010, Eos Transactions, Suppl., v. 91: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, abstract number GC43B-0985. (Also available online at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/waisfm10adv.html.)








Wylie, B.K., Rover, J.A., Murnaghan, K., Long, J.B., Tieszen, L.L., and Brisco, B., 2011, Monitoring boreal forest performance in the Yukon River Basin [abs.], in Annual Meeting, Seattle, Wash., 12-16 April 2011, Proceedings: Washington, D.C., Association of American Geographers, abstract ID 40853. (Also available online at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/index.cfm?mtgID=56.)

Xiao, J., Davis, K.J., Chen, J., Reichstein, M., Baldocchi, D.D., Beer, C., Chasmer, L.,

Chen, J.M., Desai, A.R., Ichii, K., Ito, A., John, R., Jung, M., Kato, T., Knorr, W., Law, B.E., Liu, S., Luo, Y., Mirco, M., Mu, Q., Naithani, K., Papale, D., Running, S.W., Ryu, Y., Schaefer, K.M., Schwalm, C.R., Sun, G., Tian, H., Tomelleri, E., Williams, C.A., Wylie, B.K., Yuan, W., and Zhang, L., 2011, Advances in upscaling of carbon and water fluxes from towers to regional, continental and global scales [abs.], in AmeriFlux Science Meeting and 3rd NACP All-Investigators Meeting, New Orleans, La., 31 Jan-4 Feb 2011: AmeriFlux and North American Carbon Program, unpaged. (Also available online at http://www.nacarbon.org/meeting_2011/ab_intro.htm.)

Young, C.J., Liu, S., Huang, S., Feng, M., and Quenzer, R.J., 2010, EcoServ—an

online ecosystem services modeling system using Open Geospatial Consortium standards [abs.], in ACES—A Community on Ecosystem Services, Gila River Indian Community, Phoenix, Ariz., 6-9 December 2010, Abstract Book: U.S. Geological Survey and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, p. 230. (Also available online at http://www.conference.ifas.ufl.edu/aces/index.html.)

Zhang, L., Wylie, B.K., Ji, L., Gilmanov, T.G., Tieszen, L.L., and Howard, D.M., 2011,

Upscaling carbon fluxes over the Great Plains grasslands—sinks and sources [abs.], in Towards upscaling flux information from towers to the globe, Fluxnet and Remote Sensing Open Workshop, Berkeley, Calif., 7-9 June 2011, Poster Abstracts: Oak Ridge, Tenn., FluxNet, p. 33. (Also available online at http://nature.berkeley.edu/biometlab/fluxnet2011/fluxwkshp.html.)

Zhu, Z., and Liu, S., 2011, Assessing carbon stocks and sequestration capacities in

ecosystems of the United States under present conditions and future scenarios [abs.], in AmeriFlux Science Meeting and 3rd NACP All-Investigators Meeting, New Orleans, La., 31 Jan-4 Feb 2011, Poster Session IV: Greenbelt, Md., AmeriFlux and North American Carbon Program, number H-170. (Also available online at http://www.nacarbon.org/meeting_2011/ab_intro.htm.)

Conclusion During FY 2011, the Center continued to focus on the priorities established through the Interior Department‘s Strategic Plan for FY 2011-2016, the USGS Science Strategies, and the Climate and Land Use Change Programs, as well as advancing specific goals and objectives of the 2010-2015 Strategic Plan for USGS EROS, namely:




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Understand the Nation‘s remote sensing requirements;

Expand our multi-mission capabilities so that those requirements can be addressed;

Develop a terrestrial monitoring system that provides the data, services, and assessments needed to understand and manage environmental change; and

Maintain a strong remote sensing science, applications, and development program that addresses the Nation‘s most pressing needs.

Communication with our expanding constituent, customer, and user base is vital to achieving our mission and the success of our projects and activities. To communicate with us or for more information about EROS, contact Janice Nelson [email protected], Communications and Outreach, USGS EROS Center, 47914 252nd Street, Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57198, http://eros.usgs.gov/.


http://eros.usgs.gov/

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