Day 1, June 2, 2020

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11:00 AM Setting the Stage

Goals: Provide a background on USFS-NASA collaboration. Review goals and desired outcomes for the Pitch Fest. Introduce organizing committee and speakers.

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• Welcome to the Pitch Fest – Everett Hinkley (Forest Service) 

• 2019 Workshop, Objectives & Goals - Erik Johnson (Forest Service)

• Team and Speaker Introductions Sabrina Delgado Arias (Science Systems and Applications, Inc.-NASA GSFC) 

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11:20 AM Building a bridge between NASA technology & Natural Resource Management Decision Makers

Goals: Provide perspectives from NASA and USFS on developing a strategic framework for

collaboration and coordination. Review USDA Forest Service management goals and information needs. Highlight work by NASA’s Western Water Applications Office (WWAO) and NASA Land Atmosphere Near Real-time Capability (LANCE)/Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS)

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• NASA Perspective: Lawrence Friedl, Director, Applied Sciences Program at NASA 

• Forest Service Perspective: Cynthia West, Executive Director Office of Sustainability and Climate/USDA Forest Service 

• Connecting NASA Capabilities and Water Resources Needs in the Western U. S. Stephanie Granger, Western Water Applications Office 

• Leveraging NASA LANCE/FIRMs web-based active fire mapping and data dissemination activities to optimize USFS upstream data processing framework for active fire mapping. Diane Davies, Brad Quayle - NASA GSFC – USFS GTAC 

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12:00 PM Panel 1: Insights on Key Opportunity Areas for NASA-Forest Service Collaboration

Panel Goals: Provide perspective from NASA mission scientists and ‘science-to-tools’

translators on key opportunity areas for utilizing NASA technology to support the management of fire, smoke, and carbon.

Fire, Emissions & Carbon Panel // Moderated by Birgit Peterson (USGS)

Panelists

• Andy Hudak – USDA Forest Service

• Grant Domke – USDA Forest Service

• George Hurtt, Science Team Leader, U. of Maryland, Carbon Monitoring System (CMS)

• Brad Quayle – USDA Forest Service

• Cara Farr – USDA Forest Service

• Sassan Saatchi – NASA JPL (TBC)

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Pitch Fest Begins – Session I

Goals: Participants who submitted a form during the spring Call for Ideas, pitch their ideas on how to advance the use of satellite remote sensing data to support land management decision support needs. All Pitch Fest attendees vote via live polls to prioritize key actions and low-hanging fruit opportunities.

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Disturbance Resilience, Resistance, & Recovery

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Using dynamic remote sensing for early detection of forest stress in the Sierra Nevada Mountains (1):Ben Soderquist, Ph.D. Troy Magney, Ph.D. Nick Parazoo, Ph.D. U.S. Forest Service Office of Sustainability and Climate

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Operational Tool for Producing Near Real-Time Land Surface Phenology Product at 10-30m Pixels by Fusing Landsat, Sentinel-2, and VIIRS Observations for Land Management (3): Xiaoyang Zhang. South Dakota State University

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Tree Structure Damage Impact Predictive (TreeS-DIP) Model/Product (4): Renee Jacokes, Brad Quayle, Dr. Andrew Molthan, Dr. Christopher Hain, Bonnie Stine, Bill Burkman. US Forest Service, NASA MSFC

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Landscape conditions for adaptive management and adaptation in a rapidly changing landscape (5): Jason Sibold, Clay Speas, Carlyn Perovich, Michael Battaglia, Jake Ivan.  Colorado State University, USFS GMUG and Rocky Mountain Research Stations, Colorado Parks and Wildlife

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Fire & Fuels

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Remote sensing of black carbon (BC) inputs from wildland fires (6): refining estimates of BC production and improving landscape C simulation models: Mac A. Callaham, Joseph J. O'Brien, E. Louise Loudermilk, Dexter J. Strother, Steve Flanagan, J. Kevin Hiers. USFS Southern Research Station, Tall Timbers Research Station

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Remote sensing for more accurate estimates of area burned in sub- canopy prescribed fires using char related spectral signatures (7): Mac A. Callaham, Joseph J. O'Brien, E. Louise Loudermilk, Dexter J. Strother, Steve Flanagan, and J. Kevin Hiers. USFS Southern Research Station

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Strategic SMAP soil moisture products downscaling for integration with current USFS wildfire and prescribed burning prediction models, systems, and tools (8): Grant Snitker, Joseph O’Brien, Mac Callaham, Matt Levi. University of Georgia, USFS Southern Research Station

 

Coarse-scale 3D fuel mapping for operational use in next-generation fire-atmosphere fire behavior models: E. Louise Loudermilk, Andrew Hudak, Steve Flanagan, Scott Goodrick, Joseph O'Brien, Kevin J. Hiers. USFS, Southern and Rocky Mountain Research Stations, Tall Timbers Research Station

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Microwave and optical remote sensing for fire detection (10): Sujay Kumar, John Bolten, NASA GSFC

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Quantifying canopy bulk density and downed coarse woody fuels via optical and SAR satellite sensor data to enable wildfire modeling and risk management (11): Peter Wolter, Brian Sturtevant, Jeffrey Kroll, Patty Johnson. Iowa State University, US Forest Service, Rhinelander, Kawishiwi Ranger District and Superior National Forest

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Scalable surface fuels mapping using three-dimensional remote sensing (12): Jonathan Greenberg, Leland Tarnay, Matthew Dickinson, Eric Rowell, and Carlos Ramirez, University of Nevada, Reno, USFS, Tall Timbers Res. Station & Pacific SW Region

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Introducing Spatially Distributed Fire Danger from Earth Observations (FDEO) using Satellite-based Data in the Contiguous United States (13): Alireza Farahmand; Natasha Stavros; JT Reager, NASA JPL; Raytheon

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Evaluating Performance of Icesat-2 ATL08 Product for Vegetation Structure Characterization in Various Vegetation Environments In the USA (14): Lonesome Malambo, Sorin Popescu, Texas A&M University

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Flash and burn: Connecting ignition sources to wildland fires in time and space. (15): Joseph O'Brien(1), Louise Loudermilk (1), Steve Flanagan (2), J. Kevin Hiers (2), Dan Jimenez (3), Andy Hudak (3), Cynthia Fowler (4) Grant Snitker (5). USFS Southern and Rocky Mountain Research Stations, Tall Timbers Research Station, Wofford College, University of Georgia

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Enhancing Fire Management with Earth Observations (16): Mary Ellen Miller, Dr. Nancy French, Matt Dickinson, Sam Batzli. Michigan Tech Research Institute UW - Madison

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NIROPS imagery for calibration and validation of satellite fire products (17): Luigi Boschetti, Andrew Hudak, Vince Ambrosia. University of Idaho, USFS, NASA-AMES

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Land Cover Mapping & Monitoring

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National Canopy Height Layer (1m) and Dataset of Individual Tree Objects (18): Jim Ellenwood. US Forest Service R&D IMAR/MRS & GAR

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Seeing the Buildings, Forests, and Trees: Mapping WUI Environments and Losses After Wildfire Events (19): Miranda H. Mockrin, Volker C. Radeloff, Todd Hawbaker, Sebastian Martinuzzi. Northern Research Station, U. of Wisconsin, USGS

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Disturbance/Recovery Forecasting (20): Nathan Pugh, Claire Simpson, Rob Vaughan. USFS-GTAC

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Using ICESat-2 and Landsat to Map Forest Aboveground Biomass in the Southern US (21) Lana L. Narine, Sorin C. Popescu, Lonesome Malambo, and Meng Liu. Auburn University and Texas A&M University

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Subpixel analysis of flaming versus smoldering combustion (22): Chris Elvidge. Colorado School of Mines

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Day 2, June 3, 2020

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11:00 AM Setting the Stage – Day 2

Goals: Review Pitch Fest goals and objectives for Day 2.

• Welcome – Sabrina Delgado Arias (Science Systems and Applications, Inc.-NASA GSFC) and Everett Hinkley (Forest Service)

• Objectives, Goals - Erik Johnson (Forest Service) 

 

11:15 AM – 12:00 PM Panel 2: Insights on Key Opportunity Areas for NASA-Forest Service Collaboration

Goals: Provide perspective from NASA mission scientists and ‘science-to-tools’ translators on key opportunity areas for utilizing NASA technology to support land management activities and decisions, specifically for vegetation and water.

 

Water & Vegetation Panel // Raha Hakimdavar (USFS) Panelists

• Simon Yueh - Project Scientist, Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), NASA JPL

• Thomas Neumann - Project Scientist; Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2, NASA GSFC

• Kevin Megown – Resource, Mapping, Inventory and Monitoring Program Lead, USFS Geospatial Technology and Applications Center

• Linda Spencer - National Rangelands Vegetation Ecologist, USFS WO

• Tim Stroope - Hydrogeologist, USFS Washington Office

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Pitch Fest Begins – Session II​

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Goals: Participants who submitted a form during the spring Call for Ideas, pitch their ideas for how to advance the use of satellite remote sensing data to support USFS management decision support needs. All Pitch Fest attendees vote via live polls to prioritize key actions and low-hanging fruit opportunities.

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Inventory & Analysis of Forest and Forested Wetlands

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Facilitating the use of Remote Sensing for Rapid Detection of Deforestation and Fire and Monitoring Carbon Sequestration (23): Matthew Dickinson, Carlos Alberto Silva, Andy Hudak. US Forest Service NRS

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Integrating NASA and USFS datasets for a high-resolution annual forest carbon monitoring system (24): Alex Rudee, George Hurtt. World Resources Institute

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Mapping tree crown areas & height of forests the 50 cm scale using machine learning (25): Compton Tucker. NASA GSFC

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A deep learning approach for modeling forest structure and classifying disturbance across ecotypes and time (26): Tony Chang, Ty Barry Wilson, Karen Schleeweiss. Conservation Science Partners, USFS – RMRS FIA

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Predicting forest mortality by integrating genetics and remote sensing (27): Benjamin Blonder, Suzanne Marchetti. NASA JPL, R2 Forest Health Protection

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Testing ICESAT2 data for Supporting Tree Canopy Cover Data (28): Kevin Megown, Stacie Bender, Karen Schleeweis, Mark Finco, Bonnie Ruefenacht. USFS GTAC, USFS – RMRS FIA

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Improving forest structure monitoring with GEDI (29): Ray Davis, Sean Healey, David Bell, Zhiqiang Yang. USFS - National Forest System, Pacific Northwest Region

 

Landsat-era LAI data for studying declining water resources in Oregon’s Harney Basin (30): Margaret Matter and Bailing Li. Oregon Department of Agriculture, NASA GSFC, University of Maryland

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Developing an improved biomass inventory system for U.S. mangrove forests using remote sensing and LiDAR- based field sampling techniques (31): Todd Schroeder, Carl Trettin, Mark Brown, Temilola Fatoyinbo, Mark Simard. USFS - Southern Research Station NASA GSFC & JPL

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Forest Hydrology: Processes, Management and Assessment

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Developing improved forest soil moisture estimates from in situ, satellite and land-surface models (32):  Steven Quiring, Trent Ford. The Ohio State University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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Use of remote sensing to monitor the condition and biogeochemical processes in managed forests (34): Andrew Chris Oishi, Devendra Amatya. USFS - Southern Research Station

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Delineation of Terrestrial - Blue Carbon Boundary in Coastal Waters of the U.S. (35): Carl Trettin, Temilola Fatoyinbo, Mark Simard. USFS - Southern Research Station, NASA GSFC & JPL

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Identifying and leveraging synergies with the remote sensing community to improve the next generation of the SNOTEL ground observation network and NRCS water supply forecasting system for the US West (36): Sean Fleming, Brian Domonkos, Jolyne Lea, Chris Brown, Karl Wetlaufer, Gus Goodbody.  USDA - NRCS

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Detection and attribution of a recent, unexpected hydrologic change (37):  Mark Green, Scott Bailey, and John Campbell. Case Western Reserve U. and USFS, Northern Research Station

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Riparian areas vegetation classification (38): Sinan Abood, Linda Spencer, Nathaniel Gillespie. USFS

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Using thermal imagery acquired with the UAVSAR platform to identify and delineate groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs) (39): Tim Stroope, Donna Shorrock, Karri Cary. USFS

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Designation and recovery tracking of an emergency priority watershed using EO (40): Raha Hakimdavar. USFS

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Estimation of Rangeland Yield from Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Data Products (41): Mahesh Pun, Matt Reeves. NASA GSPF, USFS

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Knowledge Discovery Tools/Platforms

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​Real Time remote viewing technical assistance (42): Robert Gubernick. USFS

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Post Harvest Recovery Prediction (43): Nathan Pugh, Claire Simpson, Rob Vaughan. USFS-GTAC

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A FIESTA Bridge: Spanning the gap between NASA products and forest inventory data (44): Gretchen Moisen, Tracey Frescino, Kelly McConville. USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, FIA

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NASA GLOBE Observer Trees Tool for Mobile Tree Height, ICESat-2, and Open Altimetry (45): Brian Campbell, Peder Nelson. NASA Wallops Flight Facility and GST, Inc., Oregon State Univ.

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Building Capacity to use NASA data For Forestry Management (46): Ana I. Prados. NASA GSFC

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Satellite data based Virtual Nature (Forest) (47): Rainer Ressl, Florian Hruby. CONABIO

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The potential for near-term iterative forecasting to advance USFS land- management and decision support (49): Michael Dietze, Quinn Thomas, Shawn Serbin, Melissa A Kenney, Eric V. Lonsdorf. Boston University, Virginia Tech, Brookhaven National Lab, University of Minnesota, Ecological Forecasting Initiative

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Wildfire mitigation and emergency response: Connecting NASA data, models, and tools to USFS decisions using concept maps and machine-assisted discovery (50): Bill Teng, Brian Wee, Arif Albayrak. NASA GES DISC, Massive Connections, LLC

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NASA Operational Data Extractor Service (NODES) (51): Andrew Lister. USFS Northern Research Station

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Soil Mapping & Inventory

 

Soil salinization detection, projection, mitigation adaptation for agriculture and forest lands (52):  Steven McNulty. USDA Climate Hubs

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Semi-Automated National Forest Landslide Mapping via LiDAR (53): Noel Ludwig. USFS Rocky Mountain Region

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Bare-ground trend forecasting (54): Nathan Pugh, Claire Simpson, Rob Vaughan. USFS-GTAC

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Predictive Erosion Potential (55): Nathan Pugh, Claire Simpson, Rob Vaughan. USFS-GTAC

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Sabrina Delgado Arias leads Discussion, Next Steps, & Closing 

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