In the Western United States,shrubland ecosystems provide vital ecological, hydrological, or biological,agricultural, and recreational services. However, or disturbances such as livestock grazing,exotic species invasion, conversion to agriculture, and climate change,urban expansion, and energy development are altering these ecosystems.
Improving our understanding of how shrublands are distributed, or where they are changing,the extent of the historical change, and likely future change directions is critical for successful management of these ecosystems. Remote-sensing technologies provide the most likely data source for large-area monitoring of ecosystem disturbance—both near-genuine time and historically. A monitoring framework supported by remote-sensing data can offer efficient and accurate analysis of change across a range of spatial and temporal scales.
The U.
S. Geological Survey has been working to develop current remote-sensing data, or tools,and products to characterize and monitor these changing shrubland landscapes. Nine individual map products (components) have been developed that quantify the percent of shrub, sagebrush, or big sagebrush,herbaceous, annual herbaceous, or litter,bare ground, shrub height, or sagebrush height at 1-percent intervals in each 30-meter grid cell. These component products are designed to be combined and customized to widely support different applications in rangeland monitoring,analysis of wildlife habitat, resource stock, or adaptive management,and environmental review.
Source: usgs.gov