Improving Forest Management Through Early Detection of Bark Beetle Outbreaks in the Southeastern United States Using Earth Observations
Abstract
Bark beetle infestations causing localized and widespread tree mortality have increased recently in the southeastern United States, causing economic losses and potential for devastating wildfires. Bark beetle outbreaks cause canopy color changes, with needles fading and eventually turning red before falling off. Traditionally, these signs of bark beetle outbreaks are detected in annual aerial surveys conducted by federal and state agencies, but they are also detectable by remote sensing technology. The USDA US Forest Service currently uses ForWarn Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to identify locations of bark beetle outbreaks; however, the spatial resolution of MODIS can only detect infestation once it affects a sufficiently large swath of trees. This detection of widespread disturbance can be too late for effective intervention using forest management practices like thinning and sanitation logging. Improving and emerging remote sensing technologies, like imagery from Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Sentinel-2 MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI), may enhance detection early stages of bark beetle outbreaks. We assessed the utility of higher spatial resolution and red edge bands for detecting bark beetle outbreaks occurring in the Oconee National Forest (Georgia, USA) between January 2015 - July 2017 by calculating changes in NDVI and the Inverted Red Edge Chlorophyll index. Results suggest that Sentinel-2 MSI and Landsat 8 OLI data are useful for assessing co-occurring bark beetle outbreaks and drought impacts to pine forests and can improve timely detection of small beetle infestations. Although these results show improvement over imagery from MODIS, there are some challenges that remain in effectively and efficiently using remote sensing to monitor bark beetle activity in a timely manner like cloud cover, spatial resolution for some bands, and temporal resolution. By overcoming some of these challenges, increasing the usage of remote sensing to monitor bark beetles in the southeast may improve forest management, reducing losses and decreasing wildfire risk.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.B44A..13R
- Keywords:
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- 0480 Remote sensing;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 1640 Remote sensing;
- GLOBAL CHANGE