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Project ID: 01-1-4-15

Year: 2001

Date Started: 08/16/2001

Date Completed: 09/30/2006

Title: Mapping Horizontal and Vertical Distribution of Fuel by Fusing High-Resolution Hyperspectral and Polarimetric Data

Project Proposal Abstract: Current fuel maps have limited use for predicting fire behavior, analyzing fire hazard, or developing fuel management strategies. Thus a critical need exists for cost-effective remote sensing methodologies that render accurate, efficient fuel maps for landscape to regional scales. New remote sensing techniques are needed to accurately map wildland fuels according to specific vegetation types and the horizontal and vertical position of biomass, two factors that dramatically affect the intensity and spread of fires. The fusion of optical (especially hyperspectral) data with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data has the potential to provide this much needed information. These two data types have complimentary strengths, enabling the creation of high- resolution maps describing the vertical and horizontal distribution of fuels by plant community or species. The proposed three-year study will develop unique algorithms for geo-referencing optical data, fusing it with terrain corrected SAR data, and then modeling that data with GIS. The project will integrate intensive field research with lab-based analysis of representative, available remote sensing data sets and GIS data layers. One deliverable from this project is to develop a precise process that makes this analysis more easily accessible to the user community. Because the study area--the northern section of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem--provides an excellent proxy for much of the West, the methods developed in the study are expected to have wide applicability. A second deliverable will be the development of a decision matrix table for helping fire managers determine the cost-effectiveness, resolution, and timeliness tradeoffs between selecting remotely sensed data of varying levels of spatial and spectral resolutions. A third deliverable is the creation of immediately usable, high-resolution fuel maps of the study area. These maps will represent the best fuel management information derivable from remotely sensed data to date.

Principal Investigator: Don Despain

Agency/Organization: USGS-Geological Survey

Branch or Dept: NOROCK-Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Co-Principal Investigator	Richard Aspinall	Montana State University	Department of Earth Sciences
Co-Principal Investigator	Robert Crabtree	Yellowstone Ecological Research Center
Co-Principal Investigator	Kerry Halligan	Yellowstone Ecological Research Center
Co-Principal Investigator	Sassan Saatchi	NASA-National Aeronautics & Space Administration	Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Collaborator/Contributor	Tom Boatner	BLM-Bureau of Land Management	Montana-Dakotas State Office
Collaborator/Contributor	Bill Breedlove	Forest Service	WO-Washington Office
Collaborator/Contributor	Julie Neff-Shea	Forest Service	Gallatin National Forest
Collaborator/Contributor	Phil Perkins	NPS-National Park Service	Yellowstone National Park
Collaborator/Contributor	Dave Sisk	Forest Service	Bighorn NF-Medicine Wheel/Paintrock District
Collaborator/Contributor	John Varley	NPS-National Park Service	Yellowstone National Park
Federal Cooperator	Don Despain	USGS-Geological Survey	NOROCK-Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center

Project Locations

Consortium

Northwest

There are no project locations identified for this project.

Project Deliverables

Final Report ("Results presented in JFSP Final Reports may not have been peer-reviewed and should be interpreted as tentative until published in a peer-reviewed source.")

There are no deliverables available for this project.

Supporting Documents

The following supporting documents are available for this project.

Brief

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