![Intermountain West Ecological Forecasting](https://appliedsciences.nasa.gov//sites/default/files/2022-09/2017Fall_CO_IntermountainWestEco.png)
NASA
NASA
Tasseled cap greenness transformation derived from Landsat 8 imagery over lodgepole pine forest in the Intermountain West study area
Completed Projects
Enrique Vivoni
Project Description: An ongoing drought in the Colorado River Basin has reduced levels in Lake Mead to the extent of triggering a reduction in Arizona’s Colorado River supply allocation under the Drought Contingency Plan agreement. Arizona State University and the Central Arizona Project have partnered...
Nickolay Krotkov
Volcanic ash clouds pose a great danger to air traffic safety, leading to flight cancellations and creating a ripple effect on the airline industry’s economy. Real time satellite observations can provide crucial information for re-routing air traffic around the hazardous volcanic clouds. Nickolay Krotkov’s A.37 project...
McKenzie Skiles
Description: It is critical to accurately model the timing and magnitude of snowmelt in the Colorado River Basin, where melt of the seasonal mountain snowpack dominates regional hydrology, populations are increasing, and snow melt patterns are shifting. This project addresses the limitations of temperature...
Eric Hunt
Project Description: We are using the methodology outlined in Christian et al. (2019) to develop a global flash drought climatology using evaporative stress anomalies from the NASA MERRA-2 and ERA-Interim reanalysis datasets. We are also examining specific case studies of flash drought that would...
Wade T Crow
Description: This project seeks to provide high-resolution (i.e., daily, 30-m) soil moisture information to guide in-season irrigation decision support for vineyards equipped with variable-rate drip irrigation (VRDI) systems in the Central Valley of California. The primary water resource decision for these systems to when to...
Charles Huyck
Cities are complex systems with interconnected “lifeline networks” enabled by critical infrastructure, which can be severely damaged or destroyed in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Following Hurricanes Maria and Katrina and the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, for example, damage to critical systems resulted in...
Nazmus Sazib
Project description: The project aims at improving the accuracy and resolution of the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA-FAS) root-zone soil moisture (RZSM) information by utilizing alternative NASA resources, including hydrologic models, forcing data, and satellite-based soil moisture data sets. The main objective...
Charon Birkett
Description: This project provides a range of surface water products related to lakes, reservoirs, and wetlands in a near real time framework. It also offers a longer-term set of observations via integration of historical data sets. Products include water level, water extent, hypsometry and bathymetry...
John Reager
Project description: The aim of this project is to develop a groundwater numerical model using groundwater depletion from GRACE, land subsidence from InSAR, and in situ hydrologic data from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and California Department Water Resources (CA-DWR). The model, calibrated to GRACE groundwater...
Kyle Hilburn
Over the past decade, increasing wildfire frequency and intensity in the United States has led to several devastating wildfire seasons. The United States’ fire-prone landscape is more densely settled and developed than in previous years, resulting in steeply rising fire-suppression costs. The Weather Research Forecasting...