Project Team: Southeast United States Energy Team
Team Location: Wise County Clerk of Court’s Office, Wise, Virginia
The Scaled Drought Condition Index (SDCI) of Texas in May 2014 indicates areas with ideal conditions for drought. Image Credit: Southeast United States Energy Team.
Authors:
Rajkishan Rajappan
Jordan Bates
Zachary Tate
Rohini Swaminathan
Mentors/Advisors:
Dr. Kenton Ross (NASA DEVELOP National Science Advisor)
Dr. Dewayne Cecil (NOAA, Global Science Technology Inc.)
Past/Other Contributors:
Dieudonne Dusenge (DEVELOP)
Asongayi Venard (DEVELOP)
Andrew Foxx (DEVELOP)
Jessica Huff (DEVELOP)
Abstract:
The Southeast United States region is known for its natural mixed forests biome. However, these forests are under pressure from biofuel production. This project focused on identifying unhealthy forests that had been affected by invasions of pests, drought, forest fires and other natural factors. These regions have the potential to be used for biofuel production without affecting the healthy parts of the ecosystem. This project utilized data from the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and the Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) to generate Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI) for identifying unhealthy forests. Aqua and Terra’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and PERSIANN data were combined to generate Scaled Drought Condition Index (SDCI) to determine the severity of drought. MODIS was used to identify areas that have the potential of being affected by infestation or drought. Landsat images allowed targeted high resolution analyses for those areas. All the regions that were identified to have dead wood were combined to produce an unhealthy-forest map which could be used in several decision-making processes.