During the spring 2020 term of NASA’s DEVELOP National Program, participants used geospatial data and technologies to investigate, analyze, and monitor several issues around the world. Some of the topics explored throughout the term included air quality, drought, flooding, habitat restoration and management, land cover change, urbanization, water resources and quality, and wildfires. Each project completed by a DEVELOP team is conducted in partnership with agencies or organizations local to the study area. Fundamental to the analytical and geospatial component of each of these projects is NASA Earth science remote sensing data. Several of these projects used data distributed by the NASA's Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC), including data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra and Aqua platforms, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard the joint NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite, and NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), which flew aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 2000.

All projects conducted in the spring term, as well as in past terms, can be found in the DEVELOP archive.

Featured Project: Measuring Live Fuel Moisture in the Eastern Great Basin of the US

Wildfires have become a hot topic as they have increased in frequency and size in recent years. These fires are a concern especially in the Eastern Great Basin (EGB) region covering parts of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming in the United States. One measurement that can be used to predict wildfire risk in an area is live fuel moisture (LFM). LFM is the percentage of wet content to dry content in vegetation. The drier the vegetation, the higher the chance it will catch fire. Currently, the land managers of the EGB can derive LFM levels from only 165 in situ sites. The Great Basin Ecological Forecasting II DEVELOP team set out to use NASA Earth science remote sensing data to provide more accurate bi-weekly LFM estimates of the EGB for its partners, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Weather Service, and the Great Basin Coordination Center.

Instruments and Techniques Used

To do this the team created a model to reflect low, moderate, and high LFM content in the EGB. This model incorporated Evapotranspiration (ET) data from the Aqua (MYD16A2) and Terra (MOD16A2) MODIS satellite sensors; Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) (MOD09A1) from the Terra MODIS satellite sensor; NASA’s 2-band Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI2) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data (VNP13A1), and Fraction of Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FPAR) and Leaf Area Index (LAI) (VNP15A2H) from the Suomi NPP VIIRS satellite sensor; and Elevation and Aspect from the National Elevation Dataset. The team used the 2019 wildfire season as their study period and then validated their results using in situ data. The team then created a forecast map of the 2020 season. 

Major Findings

The model created by the team will be able to help their partners make more informed decisions for resource allocation for future wildfires in the EGB.

About the NASA DEVELOP National Program

The DEVELOP National Program is part of NASA’s Applied Sciences Program. Participants from around the country join the DEVELOP program for 10-week terms to apply data acquired by NASA Earth-observing satellites to bridge the gap between science and society. DEVELOP participants work with non-profit, local, state, and federal partners to create maps and other products in eight focus areas, including Food Security and Agriculture, Disasters, Ecological Forecasting, Energy, Health and Air Quality, Urban Development, Water Resources, and Transportation and Infrastructure.

Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

References

Pirrie, G., Bierly, G., King, A., and Mistick, K., 2020, Great Basin Ecological Forecasting II— Assessing and forecasting live fuel moisture content of wildfire fuels for the Eastern Great Basin to improve wildfire timing and severity predictions: NASA DEVELOP National Program web page, accessed June 12, 2020.

NASA DEVELOP National Program, 2020, The crown fuel: Forecasting live fuel moisture to better predict wildfires: NASA DEVELOP National Program video, 00:03:06, posted May 8, 2020, accessed June 12, 2020.