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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 199 records · Page 11
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2023

Los Angeles Urban Development: Utilizing NASA Earth Observations to Evaluate the Impact of Tree Coverage on Urban Heat Mitigation

Over the last several decades the city of Los Angeles, California, has been experiencing increased temperatures resulting from the urban heat island effect. This is largely due to the expansion of developed areas which allow for the trapping of heat, posing dangerous health risks. As a solution, many organizations have turned to urban greening and tree planting initiatives to help cool vulnerable communities. NASA DEVELOP has partnered with City Plants and the City of Los Angeles, Office of Forest Management to study the role of trees in urban environments and their relation to the mitigation of local urban heat islands. This team used NASA Earth observation data spanning from 2016 to 2022, including land surface temperature and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data collected from Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) and International Space Station (ISS) ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS), respectively. Data from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) were also used to obtain a supervised classification of tree canopy cover. Our analysis reveals a spatial and temporal connection between temperature and vegetation, suggesting that areas with more vegetation are less likely to suffer high summertime temperatures. Results also highlight the impacts of tree planting programs, such as the Vermont Corridor planting project, which increased tree canopy cover by up to 5% in the community between 2016 and 2022. These findings support the implementation of urban greening practices and inform residents and officials about how investing in trees will help mitigate increasing heat within Los Angeles.

Urban heat island↗
DOE OSTI2025

Carbon cycling across ecosystem succession in a north temperate forest: Controls and management implications

Despite decades of progress, much remains unknown about successional trajectories of carbon (C) cycling in north temperate forests. Drivers and mechanisms of these changes, including the role of different types of disturbances, are particularly elusive. To address this gap, we synthesized decades of data from experimental chronosequences and long-term monitoring at a well-studied, regionally representative field site in northern Michigan, USA. Our study provides a comprehensive assessment of changes in above- and belowground ecosystem components over two centuries of succession, links temporal dynamics in C pools and fluxes with underlying drivers, and offers several conceptual insights to the field of forest ecology. Our first advance shows how temporal dynamics in some ecosystem components are consistent across severe disturbances that reset succession and partial disturbances that slightly modify it: both of these disturbance types increase soil N availability, alter fungal community composition, and alter growth and competitive interactions between short-lived pioneer and longer-lived tree taxa. Further, these changes in turn affect soil C stocks, respiratory emissions, and other belowground processes. Second, we show that some other ecosystem components have effects on C cycling that are not consistent over the course of succession. For example, canopy structure does not influence C uptake early in succession but becomes important as stands develop, and the importance of individual structural properties changes over the course of two centuries of stand development. Third, we show that in recent decades, climate change is masking or overriding the influence of community composition on C uptake, while respiratory emissions are sensitive to both climatic and compositional change. In synthesis, we emphasize that time is not a driver of C cycling; it is a dimension within which ecosystem drivers such as canopy structure, tree and microbial community composition change. Changes in those drivers, not in forest age, are what control forest C trajectories, and those changes can happen quickly or slowly, through natural processes or deliberate intervention. Stemming from this view and a whole-ecosystem perspective on forest succession, we offer management applications from this work and assess its broader relevance to understanding long-term change in other north temperate forest ecosystems.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2016

Assessing the Transferability of Statistical Predictive Models for Leaf Area Index Between Two Airborne Discrete Return LiDAR Sensor Designs Within Multiple Intensely Managed Loblolly Pine Forest Locations in the South-Eastern USA

Leaf area is an important forest structural variable which serves as the primary means of mass and energy exchange within vegetated ecosystems. The objective of the current study was to determine if leaf area index (LAI) could be estimated accurately and consistently in five intensively managed pine plantation forests using two multiple-return airborne LiDAR datasets. Field measurements of LAI were made using the LiCOR LAI2000 and LAI2200 instruments within 116 plots were established of varying size and within a variety of stand conditions (i.e. stand age, nutrient regime and stem density) in North Carolina and Virginia in 2008 and 2013. A number of common LiDAR return height and intensity distribution metrics were calculated (e.g. average return height), in addition to ten indices, with two additional variants, utilized in the surrounding literature which have been used to estimate LAI and fractional cover, were calculated from return heights and intensity, for each plot extent. Each of the indices was assessed for correlation with each other, and was used as independent variables in linear regression analysis with field LAI as the dependent variable. All LiDAR derived metrics were also entered into a forward stepwise linear regression. The results from each of the indices varied from an R2 of 0.33 (S.E. 0.87) to 0.89 (S.E. 0.36). Those indices calculated using ratios of all returns produced the strongest correlations, such as the Above and Below Ratio Index (ABRI) and Laser Penetration Index 1 (LPI1). The regression model produced from a combination of three metrics did not improve correlations greatly (R2 0.90; S.E. 0.35). The results indicate that LAI can be predicted over a range of intensively managed pine plantation forest environments accurately when using different LiDAR sensor designs. Those indices which incorporated counts of specific return numbers (e.g. first returns) or return intensity correlated poorly with field measurements. There were disparities between the number of different types of returns and intensity values when comparing the results from two LiDAR sensors, indicating that predictive models developed using such metrics are not transferable between datasets with different acquisition parameters. Each of the indices were significantly correlated with one another, with one exception (LAI proxy), in particular those indices calculated from all returns, which indicates similarities in information content for those indices. It can then be argued that LiDAR indices have reached a similar stage in development to those calculated from optical-spectral sensors, but which offer a number of advantages, such as the reduction or removal of saturation issues in areas of high biomass.

Sumnall, Matthew↗
DOE OSTI2025

Litter production and foliar nutrient resorption in fast- and slow-growing tree species in the Central Amazon

Litterfall is crucial for forest maintenance, serving as a primary mechanism for nutrient return to the nutrient-poor soils of tropical forests. Foliar nutrient resorption likewise represents an important nutrient-conservation mechanism. Yet, little is known about how these processes vary between fast- and slow-growing species in post-logging areas of the Amazon forest. Here, the objective of this study was to quantify litterfall production and the resorption of foliar nutrients in fast-growing and slow-growing tree species of the Central Amazon, in a forest that was experimentally logged in 1987. The study was conducted from May 2022 to April 2023. Litterfall was collected biweekly using four collectors that were systematically distributed beneath the canopy of each monitored tree, totaling 72 collectors. Three fast-growing and three slow-growing species were selected, each with three replicates, totaling 18 monitored individuals. Species-specific samples of fresh (green) and senesced (litter) leaves were collected and analyzed for their nutrient content and resorption efficiency. Fast-growing species had a monthly leaf litter deposition of 13.53 ± 1.6 g m −2 month −1 , compared to 2.59 ± 0.4 g m −2 month −1 for slow-growing species. The average annual litter production across both functional types was 8.6 ± 2.6 Mg ha −1 year −1 . Nutrient inputs through litterfall were higher in fast-growing species for all elements, particularly nitrogen (N), with 21.92 ± 4.9 kg ha −1 year −1 . Phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) exhibited the highest foliar resorption. P resorption efficiency was 68.3 % in fast-growing species and 57.8 % in slow-growing species. For K, efficiencies were 59.0 % and 41.7 %, respectively. These results highlight the substantial role that fast-growing species play in restoring forest productivity in managed Amazon forests, both through higher litter deposition and nutrient fluxes, and through nutrient conserving-mechanisms such as foliar nutrient resorption.

Amazon forest↗
NASA NTRS2018

Mapping Pine Plantations in the Southeastern U.S. Using Structural, Spectral, and Temporal Remote Sensing Data

The southeastern U.S. produces the most industrial roundwood in the U.S. each year, largely from commercial pine plantations. The extent of plantation forests and management dynamics can be difficult to ascertain from periodic forest inventories, yet short-rotation tree plantations also present challenges for remote sensing. Here, we integrated spectral, temporal, and structural information from airborne and satellite platforms to distinguish pine plantations from natural forests and evaluate the contribution from planted forests to regional forest coverin the southeastern U.S. Within flight lines from NASA Goddard's Lidar, Hyperspectral, and Thermal (G-LiHT) Airborne Imager, lidar metrics of forest structure had the highest overall accuracy for pine plantations among single-source classifications (90%), but the combination of spectral and temporal metrics from Landsat generated comparable accuracy (91%). Combined structural, temporal, and spectral information from G-LiHT and Landsat had the highest accuracy for plantations (92%) and natural forests (88%). At a regional scale, classifications using Landsat spectral and temporal metrics had between 74 and 82% mean class accuracy for plantations.Regionally, plantations accounted for 28% of forest cover in the southeastern U.S., a result similar to plot-based estimates, albeit with greater spatial detail. Regional maps of plantation forests differed from existing map products, including the National Land Cover Database. Combining plantation extent in 2011 with Landsat based forest change data identified strong regional gradients in plantation dynamics since 1985, with distinct spatial patterns of rotation age (east-west) and plantation expansion (interior). Our analysis demonstrates the potential to improve the characterization of dynamic land cover classes, including economically important timber plantations, by integrating diverse remote sensing datasets. Critically, multi-source remote sensing provides an approach to leverage periodic forest inventory data for annual monitoring of managed forest landscapes.

Fagan, M. E.↗
DOE OSTI2021

AmeriFlux US-MWF Kellogg Experimental Forest

This is the AmeriFlux version of the carbon flux data for the site US-MWF Kellogg Experimental Forest. Site Description - 716 acre mixed forest site managed by Michigan State University since 1932. The forest is a mix of maple, oak and pine, but other tree species are present. Site was chosen to represent managed forests in the Kalamzoo River watershed.

Chen, Jiquan↗
DOE OSTI2024

Wildfire management decisions outweigh mechanical treatment as the keystone to forest landscape adaptation

Modern land management faces unprecedented uncertainty regarding future climates, novel disturbance regimes, and unanticipated ecological feedbacks. Mitigating this uncertainty requires a cohesive landscape management strategy that utilizes multiple methods to optimize benefits while hedging risks amidst uncertain futures. We used a process-based landscape simulation model (LANDIS-II) to forecast forest management, growth, climate effects, and future wildfire dynamics, and we distilled results using a decision support tool allowing us to examine tradeoffs between alternative management strategies. We developed plausible future management scenarios based on factorial combinations of restoration-oriented thinning prescriptions, prescribed fire, and wildland fire use. Results were assessed continuously for a 100-year simulation period, which provided a unique assessment of tradeoffs and benefits among seven primary topics representing social, ecological, and economic aspects of resilience. Projected climatic changes had a substantial impact on modeled wildfire activity. In the Wildfire Only scenario (no treatments, but including active wildfire and climate change), we observed an upwards inflection point in area burned around mid-century (2060) that had detrimental impacts on total landscape carbon storage. While simulated mechanical treatments (~ 3% area per year) reduced the incidence of high-severity fire, it did not eliminate this inflection completely. Scenarios involving wildland fire use resulted in greater reductions in high-severity fire and a more linear trend in cumulative area burned. Mechanical treatments were beneficial for subtopics under the economic topic given their positive financial return on investment, while wildland fire use scenarios were better for ecological subtopics, primarily due to a greater reduction in high-severity fire. Benefits among the social subtopics were mixed, reflecting the inevitability of tradeoffs in landscapes that we rely on for diverse and countervailing ecosystem services. This study provides evidence that optimal future scenarios will involve a mix of active and passive management strategies, allowing different management tactics to coexist within and among ownerships classes. Our results also emphasize the importance of wildfire management decisions as central to building more robust and resilient future landscapes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1973

Remote sensing applications in agriculture and forestry. Applications of aerial photography and ERTS data to agricultural, forest and water resources management

Remote sensing techniques are being used in Minnesota to study: (1) forest disease detection and control; (2) water quality indicators; (3) forest vegetation classification and management; (4) detection of saline soils in the Red River Valley; (5) corn defoliation; and (6) alfalfa crop productivity. Results of progress, and plans for future work in these areas, are discussed.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1983

Development of a statewide Landsat digital data base for forest insect damage assessment

A Joint Research Project (JRP) invlving NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry/Division of Forest Pest Management demonstrates the utility of Landsat data for assessing forest insect damage. A major effort within the project has been the creation of map-registered, statewide Landsat digital data base for Pennsylvania. The data base, developed and stored on computers at the Pennsylvania State University Computation Center, contains Landsat imagery, a Landsat-derived forest resource map, and digitized data layers depicting Forest Pest Management District boundaries and county boundaries. A data management front-end system was also developed to provide an interface between the various layers of information within the data base and image analysis software. This front-end system insures than an automated assessment of defoliation damage can be conducted and summarized by geographic area or jurisdiction of interest.

Williams, D. L.↗
DOE OSTI2022

AmeriFlux FLUXNET-1F US-xBR NEON Bartlett Experimental Forest (BART)

This is the AmeriFlux Management Project (AMP) created FLUXNET-1F version of the carbon flux data for the site US-xBR NEON Bartlett Experimental Forest (BART). This is the FLUXNET version of the carbon flux data for the site US-xBR NEON Bartlett Experimental Forest (BART) produced by applying the standard ONEFlux (1F) software. Site Description - The Bartlett Experimental Forest is an actively managed forest; managed portions (30%) reflect a range of forest patch sizes and structural distributions. The Bartlett forest has a history of logging dating from colonial times through the beginning of the 20th century. Approximately 70% of the land area has remained uncut since the early 1900s. Natural disturbances include late 19th century fire, beech scale-Nectria complex (beech bark disease) beginning in the 1940s, severe wind disturbance resulting from hurricanes in 1938 and 1954 and a damaging ice storm in 1998.

Network), NEON (National Ecological Observatory↗
DOE OSTI2023

Canopy responses of Swedish primary and secondary forests to the 2018 drought

Boreal forest ecosystems are predicted to experience more frequent summer droughts due to climate change, posing a threat to future forest health and carbon sequestration. Forestry is a regionally dominant land use where the managed secondary forests are typically even-aged forests with low structural and tree species diversity. It is not well known if managed secondary forests and unmanaged primary forests respond to drought differently in part because the location of primary, unmanaged, forests has remained largely unknown. Here we employed a unique map detailing over 300 primary forests in Sweden. We studied impacts of the 2018 nationwide drought by extracting and analyzing a high-resolution remote sensing vegetation index over the primary forests and over buffer zones around the primary forests representing secondary forests. We controlled for topographical variations linked to soil moisture, which was a strong determinant of drought responses, and analyzed Landsat-derived EVI2 anomalies during the drought year from a multiyear non-drought baseline. We found that primary forests were less affected by the drought compared to secondary forests. Our results indicate that forestry may exacerbate the impact of drought in a future climate with more frequent and extreme hydroclimatic events.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Modeling the effects of carbon payments and forest owner cooperatives on carbon storage and revenue in Pacific Northwest forestlands

The forestlands of the Pacific Northwest store a significant amount of carbon, provide wildlife habitat, generate revenue for forestland owners, and provide for sustainable generation of forest products. Promoting forest carbon storage is increasingly recognized as a key management objective to mitigate climate change. We developed an agent-based model to examine the effectiveness of current land management practices in sustaining forest carbon storage and revenue flows, and the utility of market-based carbon payments in improving carbon storage while also improving revenue generation in the Pacific Northwest. We find that while market based incentives can improve both forest carbon storage and revenue, they are limited in their benefit to small forest owners. Our results highlight the crucial need for additional policy interventions to reduce barriers to market access for small private owners and ensure sustainable forest management in this region. We further show that a forest owners’ cooperative, which aggregates small owners to reduce the costs of participating in a carbon market, can help overcome these barriers and result in both greater carbon storage and a more equitable benefit from carbon payments.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Biological Carbon Sequestration for Climate and Soil Health

The United States recently launched the Net Zero World Initiative on decarbonization. As temperatures and sea levels rise, strong action is needed to mitigate high atmospheric CO 2 levels. In response to this need, a joint workshop between the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) was convened to assess the challenges and opportunities within biological carbon (C) capture. The virtual workshop on Biological Carbon Sequestration for Climate and Soil Health focused on three aspects of biological C capture research: natural systems, engineered systems, and modeling. For this workshop, the scope of natural systems included unmanaged (e.g., grasslands, wetlands, natural forests) and managed (e.g., agricultural lands, commercial forests, forest biofuels) ecosystems. The engineered systems group covered topics in genetically modified plants and microbes, synthetic microbiomes, and altered plant–microbe interactions for enhancing C capture, storage, and utilization. The modeling group focused on computational tools and data collection to predict and assess the effectiveness of new biocarbon sequestration advances. Participant expertise included plant and microbial systems biology, synthetic biology, soil biogeochemistry, and techno-economic analysis. Together, participants outlined key scientific advances in support of biological C capture and storage. Among the major findings of the meeting were the need to better measure C flux within natural, agricultural, and fabricated ecosystems for experimentation; better understand the role of soil composition, plant roots, and the rhizosphere (i.e., the soil surrounding the plant root) in the underground storage of organic C; and design plant–microbe systems for maximal C storage.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

The Plant a Trillion Trees Campaign to Reduce Global Warming – Fleshing Out the Concept

The campaign to plant a trillion trees provided an easily understood approach to reduce the threat of global warming. However, focusing on trees does not consider that a maturing forest releases carbon (C) from dying trees offsetting C intake from growth of other trees, and results in only a one-time carbon storage benefit. Under sustainable management that harvests before forest growth slows down, forest C is transferred to wood products that substitute for fossil fuel (FF)- intensive products, reducing the carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions with every harvest. Sustainably managed forests maintain growth by replanting (or regenerating), sustaining the C stored in products, as well as avoiding FF-intensive product emissions with every harvest. This paper addresses the question: Could planting more trees significantly reduce atmospheric CO 2 ; and if so, how? Survey data from many wood-producing mills show life cycle inventory (LCI) data on C that has been tracked through every stage of processing for many different wood products specific to each United States (USA) supply region, as well as C displacement measurements when substituting wood for FFintensive products. Results show that more and better-managed forest lands and more efficient product uses provide significant opportunities to reduce CO 2 emissions, especially in highly productive forest regions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1981

Development of computer software to analyze entire LANDSAT scenes and to summarize classification results of variable-size polygons

The Forest Pest Management Division (FPMD) of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry has the responsibility for conducting annual surveys of the State's forest lands to accurately detect, map, and appraise forest insect infestations. A standardized, timely, and cost-effective method of accurately surveying forests and their condition should enhance the probability of suppressing infestations. The repetitive and synoptic coverage provided by LANDSAT (formerly ERTS) makes such satellite-derived data potentially attractive as a survey medium for monitoring forest insect damage over large areas. Forest Pest Management Division personnel have expressed keen interest in LANDSAT data and have informally cooperated with NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) since 1976 in the development of techniques to facilitate their use. The results of this work indicate that it may be feasible to use LANDSAT digital data to conduct annual surveys of insect defoliation of hardwood forests.

Turner, B. J.↗
NASA NTRS1977

The value of volume and growth measurements in timber sales management of the National Forests

This paper summarizes work performed in the estimation of gross social value of timber volume and growth rate information used in making regional harvest decisions in the National Forest System. A model was developed to permit parametric analysis. The problem is formulated as one of finding optimal inventory holding patterns. Public timber management differs from other inventory holding problems in that the inventory, itself, generates value over time in providing recreational, aesthetic and environmental goods. 'Nontimber' demand estimates are inferred from past Forest Service harvest and sales levels. The solution requires a description of the harvest rates which maintain the optimum inventory level. Gross benefits of the Landsat systems are estimated by comparison with Forest Service information gathering models. Gross annual benefits are estimated to be $5.9 million for the MSS system and $7.2 million for the TM system.

Lietzke, K. R.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Harvest legacies and climate change interact to shape forest structure and biomass through time

Forest structural change driven by climate trends has been observed worldwide and is expected to increase in the future. Management of forest structure has been an important tool for mitigating the impacts of climate change but forest structure may shift independently of management goals as it interacts with climate change. Here, we investigated the long-term impacts of harvest-based management strategies on structure and resistance to climate-induced biomass loss using a process-based ecosystem model for a midwestern USA hardwood forest. We identified aboveground biomass loss events and compared the cumulative number of these events following a five-year period of active management under four management strategies and two climate change scenarios. Management legacy had the clearest impact on climate-driven biomass loss over the mid-term (∼25 years) with the shelterwood scenario experiencing no loss events during this period. However, by the end of the century legacy effects faded and climate change severity became the driver of differences as greater warming scenarios experienced twice the loss events, and end-of-century loss events were 3–10 times more frequent than mid-century events. We found that while structure was distinct among harvest scenarios through the mid-century, differences were negligible by the end-of-century; identical to when management correlated with loss event frequency. Here, we found that loss events were preceded by a drop in precipitation two years prior, while no specific forest structure preceded a loss event. However, the structures preceding a biomass loss event were distinct across different legacies, implying additional influences of past management.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗