T179 Geoscience and Hydrology of Your Public Lands: STEM Internships, Research, Science, Mapping, Resource Management, and Education I

Tuesday, 24 September 2019
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Room 101C, West Building

ASSESSING MULTI-DECADAL CHANGES IN RIPARIAN AREAS ACROSS NEVADA USING THE LANDSAT ARCHIVE

Paper number: T179-13
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 11:00 AM – 11:15 AM

Authors

Abstract

Remotely sensed measures of vegetation vigor provide valuable and readily visible indicators of hydrologic and ecological conditions. Recent advances in cloud computing have provided unprecedented opportunities to monitor and assess multi-decadal changes in these indicators over large areas and at relatively high spatial and temporal resolution. In this study we quantify changes in riparian vegetation from 1985 to 2018 based on the Map of Riparian Vegetation for Nevada (MRVN). In doing so, we develop ecoregion-specific relations between annual metrics of climate and Landsat-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and analyze trends in the residuals of the climate-NDVI relationships to evaluate the component of change associated with non-climate factors. Our results include 30-m resolution maps of riparian NDVI trends that indicate where changes in water availability and vegetation condition have occurred over the past 33 years. These results can be used in conjunction with data related to climate, hydrology, resource management, or disturbances to diagnose causal factors of change and to evaluate the effects of management interventions.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 51, No. 5

doi: 10.1130/abs/2019AM-340928

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