Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU)

Testing and Applying a New Remote Sensing Tool (LandTrendr) to Detect and Monitor Landscape Dynamics

Project ID: J8W07100033

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Partner Institution: Oregon State University

Fiscal Year: 2010

Initial Funding: $37,598

Total Funding: $65,652

Project Type: Technical Assistance

Project Disciplines: Biological

National Park: I-M mutiple region networks

Principal Investigator: Kennedy, Robert

Agreement Technical Representative: Gafvert, Ulf

Abstract: Oregon State University (OSU) and the National Park Service (NPS) will collaborate on a project of mutual assistance, the public purpose of which is to support monitoring of vegetation patterns and dynamics at the landscape level. OSU has recently developed a remote sensing tool, called LandTrendr, which is a customized change-detection algorithm for use with Landsat images to identify the intensity and duration of common landscape changes. Six NPS Inventory & Monitoring (I&M) Networks (and other federal agencies) have been collaborating with OSU recently in pilot efforts to use LandTrendr to detect landscape change as part of efforts to develop protocols to monitor landscape dynamics. These pilot efforts have generated a series of questions and issues, including: what is the sensitivity and accuracy of LandTrendr in non-wooded ecosystem types?; what are the best approaches in attributing a change agent to mapped change?; how best to deal with data gaps and persistent clouds?; what is the degree to which manual post-processing of change maps is needed?; and what is the overall interpretation of change trajectories when change is not obvious? For this project, OSU will collaborate with NPS in a series of new tests and applications whereby individual I&M networks can work individually and collectively on these questions of interest. Products include a report and/or a peer-reviewed manuscript on use and applications of Landtrendr for monitoring land cover/land use change and landscape dynamics in and around selected NPS units, and recommendations for applying the LandTrendr tool. The public benefits include furthering the understanding and application of state-of-the-art remote sensing tools for monitoring landscape change that can be used by NPS, other federal agencies, and interested researchers to monitor landscape dynamics and ecosystem health. The resulting products will be available to the general public, posted on I&M web sites and/or published in scientific journals.

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