Nationally, more fires occur in shrublands and grasslands than in forests. During the 1984-2008 timeframe, 14.5 million hectares of shrublands and grasslands burned in the conterminous US, as opposed to 6.0 million hectares for forest lands. Unfortunately, available national wildfire fuel databases, such as LANDFIRE...

We propose to improve the decision-making activities related to post-fire risk assessment and rehabilitation by developing spatial data and image processing tools needed for modeling the hydrological response of watersheds impacted by wildfires. Post-fire flooding and erosion can pose a serious threat to life, property...

NASA Applications Program support to a group led by one of us (Policelli), has resulted in initial production and ongoing publication of an automated, near real time (NRT), MODIS sensor-based, flood map product. This includes both daily raster maps (at 10 degree latitude and longitude...

Background: When data from different platforms are used synergistically, their strengths can be capitalized upon by minimizing errors from individual platforms. As an example, integration of NASAs vertical profiles of reflectivity from TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) have been demonstrated to improve surface rainfall rate estimates...

Responses to recent great earthquakes and ensuing tsunamis in Sumatra, Chile and Japan with the severe loss of life, massive damage to infrastructure, and major economic and social consequences demonstrate that our ability to rapidly evaluate the magnitude and source of catastrophic earthquakes using traditional...

Responses to great earthquakes and ensuing tsunamis over the last decade in Sumatra, Chile and Japan with the severe loss of life, massive damage to infrastructure, and major economic and social consequences demonstrate that our ability to rapidly and appropriately respond to catastrophes using traditional...

When an earthquake occurs, seismic data provides an initial estimate of magnitude and location. However, for large earthquakes, we can improve our situational awareness once we know the full extent of the rupture - large earthquakes result from several 100's of kilometers of fault breaking...

Volcanic eruptions are among the most significant hazards to human society, capable of triggering natural disasters on regional and global scales. Recent eruptions also indicated their potential to disrupt air traffic and cause significant damage to the global economy. In the last decade, remote sensing...

The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project was established, in part, to help assess the effectiveness of national fire policies; provide essential spatial fire disturbance data for update of regional/national land cover characterization databases; and provide a comprehensive and consistent dataset for regional planning...

Recent GAO reports have identified a need for land managers to develop measures to evaluate the efficacy of fuels treatments for mitigating fire hazard on federal lands. The proposed Automated Fuels Treatment Effectiveness Evaluation Using Remote-Sensing Information (AFTEERS) tool will address this stated need by...