NASA Applied Sciences

The proposal examines the feasibility of using NASA and other satellite observations in regional operational flash-flood warning and response systems worldwide, and assesses any resultant flash-flood warning improvements. The observations are (a) radiance by the AIRS, AMSU-A, AMSU-B, HIRS, and MHS instruments aboard various polar...

We propose a method for predicting the spatial distribution of harmful algal bloom (HAB) and toxin load likelihoods in the coastal region of the California Current System (CCS) using a unique blend of numerical models, ecological forecast models of target phytoplankton species (Pseudo-nitzschia and its...

We propose to apply a new regression tree algorithm (as demonstrated in Sun and Yu, 2010; Sun et al., 2011) for the retrieval of water fraction under all-sky conditions to better assess and document the severity of floods. Floods are the most frequent natural disasters...

Understanding how species and habitats are likely to respond to climate warming is critical in developing effective conservation and management strategies for freshwater ecosystems. We propose to link high-resolution satellite remote sensing mapping of freshwater habitats with genetic and demographic data and spatially explicit hydrological...

The timing of key life events like reproduction (i.e. phenology) is tightly linked to climate. For example, alpine wildflowers emerge and flower within a few weeks of snow disappearance, and complete their life-cycles before first frost in early autumn. Because annual variability in snow disappearance...

The goal of the System for Mapping and Predicting Species of Concern (SMAP-SOC) project is to provide natural resource managers with a tool to both map current locations of freshwater species of concern (SOCs) and predict future changes in their distributions. Freshwater SOCs include both...

About 8 million acres of forest, range, and crop land are burned annually in the southern United States, mostly for hazard reduction, wildlife habitat improvement, and range management. Georgia is one of the states strongly affected by prescribed fires. Unlike wildfires, which fall into the...

This proposal seeks to develop a prototype application that integrates nationally available LANDFIRE data with locally available lidar data to produce high quality vegetation structure and fuels information to support strategic and tactical wildland fire decision-making at incident/local scales. The project focuses specifically on the...

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...