"We're currently supporting government agencies addressing the potential fire hazards in our forests, mapping damaged and destroyed homes, developing tree treatment priority maps and treatment status maps and providing an accurate count of the vegetation mortality status in the forest," said Gerco Hoogeweg, MAST project manager. "This is a long-term, multiagency effort where collaboration, cooperation, and communication are fostering significant results."
GIS applications determine treatment areas and their priority based on variables such as vegetation mortality, population, roads, utility infrastructure and others.
Vegetation mortality was previously mapped by using fixed wing aircraft and area ecologists looking out of the window to estimate the extent and severity of the problem. DigitalGlobe, one of the corporate sponsors of the MAST GIS lab, supplied high-resolution multispectral QuickBird imagery for the San Bernardino National Forest. Using high-resolution imagery allowed the scientists a better assessment of the vegetation mortality. The use of satellite imagery has the advantage of not only providing up-to-date information regarding the status of the forest, but also providing a great visual true-color overview of the problem. As more imagery is collected over time, change detection can be used to determine if the status has deteriorated or if trees have been cut.
