Creating the Tamarisk Habitat Suitability Map (for Science Presentations)

  • Released Wednesday, February 15, 2006
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The spread of invasive species is one of the most daunting environmental, economic, and human-health problems facing the United States and the World today. It is one of several grand challenge environmental problems being addressed by NASA's Science Mission Directorate through a national application partnership with the US Geological Survey. NASA and USGS are working together to develop a National Invasive Species Forecasting System (ISFS) for the management and control of invasive species on Department of Interior and adjacent lands. The system provides a framework for using USGS's early detection and monitoring protocols and predictive models to process MODIS, ETM+, ASTER, and commercial remote sensing data, and create on-demand, regional-scale assessments of invasive species patterns and vulnerable habitats.

The first step in this process is to collect relevant satellite data which can then be used to derive a Tamarisk Habitat Suitability Map. By combining daily Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI), daily Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), and MODIS Land Cover Classification data the likely Tamarisk habitat suitability map can be derived.

This animation depicts NDVI, EVI, and Landcover data combining to derive a Tamarisk Habitat Suitability Map.

NDVI (in shades of green) is the topmost dataset. EVI (in shades of red, orange, and brown) is the middle layer. Landcover (in shades of yellow, orange, and green) is the bottommost layer.

NDVI (in shades of green) is the topmost dataset. EVI (in shades of red, orange, and brown) is the middle layer. Landcover (in shades of yellow, orange, and green) is the bottommost layer.

The Tamarisk Habitat Suitability Map

The Tamarisk Habitat Suitability Map

Habitat Suitability legend

Habitat Suitability legend

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Wednesday, February 15, 2006.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:55 PM EDT.

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