IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - December 2016 - 32

GSFC: Goddard Space Flight Center; JPL: Jet Propulsion Laboratory; POC: point of contact; WMO: World Meteorological Organization; USGS: U.S. Geological Survey; DOI: Department of the Interior; GFP: Global Flood Partnership; DOD: U.S.
Department of Defense; UAF: University of Alaska at Fairbanks; DOE: U.S. Department of Energy; PNW: Pacific Northwest.

Disasters
Flood monitoring
brazilian national water Resources
agency (POC: Adalberto Meller)
brazilian Geological Survey (POC:
Daniel Medeiros Moreira)
International Commission for
Congo oubangui and Sangha basin
Improved river
hydrodynamics
estimates from
ICESat-2 for
hydrology
predictions
Congo, Amazon,
and Niger River
Basins
Mike Jasinski

Hydrology

Ecosystems,
biodiversity
Land management and
monitoring over large
regions (Arctic tundra,
boreal forest)
USDa forest Service Pnw Research
Station (POC: Dr. Hans-Erik Andersen)
Using ICESat-2 Prelaunch Data in High
Latitude Terrestrial
Ecosystems to
Allow for Continuous
Monitoring of Boreal
Forests and Arctic
Tundra

Rodrigo C.D. Paiva (federal
University of Rio Grande
do Sul, brazil, hydraulic
Research Institute)

REGION(S)

Arctic tundra and
boreal forest; interior Alaska
Vegetation
Lori Magruder
(University of
Texas)
G. Javier fochesatto, (Uaf,
Geophysical Institute)
falk huettmann (Uaf, Institute of arctic biology)

END-USER(S)

APPLICATION(S)

GEO SOCIETAL
BENEFIT
AREA(S)
EARLY
ADOPTER TITLE
SCIENCE
THEME
SCIENCE
DEFINITION
TEAM PARTNER
EARLY ADOPTER PRINCIPAL
INVESTIGATOR NAME

TABLE 4. THE ICESat-2 EARLY ADOPTERS AS OF SEPTEMBER 2015. (CONTINUED)

Secretarial Order 3336 (2015). Lidar remote sensing offers the ability to map canopy characteristics needed for
land management of the ecosystem [26], as metrics describing shrub canopy are critical inputs to quantifying
fuels, productivity, and habitat quality.
The Great Basin is a large sagebrush-steppe eco-region
and is bounded by the Wasatch Mountains on the east,
the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges on the west, and
the Snake River Basin on the north. It includes most of
Nevada and substantial portions of Utah, Oregon, California, and Idaho (Figure 1). This Early Adopter project
focuses on integrating ICESat-2 data into managementdriven projects in the Great Basin with the BLM and
within the Joint Fire Sciences Program. These projects
work to ensure the maximum integration of science into
management decisions through partnerships and technology transfer. The projects are also part of the Great Basin
Research and Management Partnership (GBRMP) and of
associated consortia databases intended to reach a wide
management-based audience.
This project tests prototype ICESat-2 data (MABEL)
with airborne and terrestrial laser-scanning and optical
remote sensing data that have previously been used to
derive biomass, cover, and height information in the
Great Basin. While previous work on vegetation analysis with ICESat-2 has focused on forests with a full
canopy, this project seeks to determine the sensitivity
of ATLAS data to derive key canopy characteristics that
would allow mapping of semiarid ecosystem structure
at landscape scales, such as the sagebrush steppe in the
Great Basin.
MABEL-based simulations of ATLAS data were used
to evaluate the potential of ATLAS to quantify shrub
heights in two study areas in the Great Basin [27]. The
study areas included the U.S. Department of the Interior's Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National
Conservation Area (NCA) and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's (USDA's)Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed (RCEW). The analyses demonstrated that simulated ATLAS data have the sensitivity to quantify height
metrics of semiarid vegetation with minimum heights of
1 m and 30% canopy cover [26]. These results are compelling, especially with the potential to combine future
ICESat-2 data with optical data such as Landsat 8 to improve both height and cover estimates (e.g., [28]-[30]).
The synergistic use of Landsat 8 and ICESat-2 data may
enable wall-to-wall estimates of vegetation community
structure and carbon for semiarid ecosystems.
This Early Adopter activity continues to focus on improving the mission's understanding of how the data
could be used for quantifying semiarid vegetation, and
how the information could be incorporated into land
management decision making. The BLM, the primary
land manager for the Great Basin, relies on satellite remote sensing as the basis of quantitative, repeatable, and
low-cost methods to measure indicators of ecosystem
ieee Geoscience and remote sensing magazine

december 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - December 2016