The relatively cloud free weather in the Great Basin has allowed the accumulation of several dates of excellent ERTS-1 imagery. Mountains, valleys, playas, stream courses, canyons, alluvial fans, and other landforms are readily delineated on ERTS-1 imagery, particularly with MSS-5. Each band is useful for identifying and studying one or more natural resource features. For example, crested wheatgrass seedings were most easily identified and measured on MSS-7. Color enhancements simulating CIR were useful for depicting meadow and phreatophytic vegetation along water bodies and stream courses. Work is underway to inventory and monitor wildfire areas by age and successional status. Inventories have been completed on crested wheatgrass seedings over the entire State of Nevada, and inventories of playa surfaces, water surfaces, phreatophytic vegetation, snow cover, meadows, and other features is continuing. Vegetation ecotones are being delineated for vegetation mapping. The pinyon/juniper-northern desert shrub ecotone has been identified with considerable success. Phenology changes can be used to describe vegetation changes for management

Lorain, G.

Tueller, P. T.

English

NASA Technical Reports Server

Paper A 9 
ERTS-1 EVALUATIONS OF NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT APPLI- 
CATIONS I N  THE GREAT BASIN 
Paul T. Tueller, Garwir! Lorain, Remote Sensing Laboratory, Reneweble Resources 
Ca,7ter, University of Nevada Reno, Reno, I\ievada 
The relatively cloud free weather in the Great Basin has all& the 
accurmlation of several dates of excellat R.TS-1 imageri. Mountains, valleys, 
playas, stream courses, canyons, alluvial fans, and other landforms are read- 
ily delineated on ERRS-1 imagery, particularly with MSS-5. Each band is use- 
ful f ~ r  identifying and studying one or m r e  natural resource features. For 
example, crested wheatgrass seedings were most easlly identified and masured 
on MSS-7. Color simulating CIR m e  useful for depicting meadow 
and phreatophytic vegetation along mter bodies and stream courses. 
A lack of sequential EF?l'S-1 merage during the cpwing season has pre- 
cluded an waluation of vegetation phenology changes. Hmwer, significant 
phenolcgy ccmparlsons have been made with U-2 data and offer pranise of use- 
ful~sss in d c b g  resource management decisions. Wrk is m y  to inven- 
tory ad d t o r  wildfire areas by age and successional status. Inventories 
have been canpleted on crested wheatgrass W i n g  wer the entire State of 
Nevada, ard inventories of playa surfaces, witr31: surfaces , phreatophytic vege- 
tation, snow cover, meadaws, ard other features is continuing. Pbst of this - 
data is unavailable from conventional sources and wazld not be available with- 
out the possibility of rapid inventory on ERTS-1 imagery. 
Vegetation ecotones are being delineate3 for vegetation mapping. Tine pin- 
ydjuniper-norther desert shrub ecotone has been identif i d  w i t h  considerable 
success. Phenology changes car. be used to describe vegetation changes for man- 
agement. 
Cloud free weather in the Gcedt Basin has allow& ccmplete merage of Nw- 
a h .  m y  arm are ccnrcred by several dates, A mosaic of the state has re- 
cently been constructed using 21 black a d  white prhts at a scale of 1:l ndl- 
lion (24 by 36 inch shet) and 1:2 million (12 by 18 inch sheet). l%e red 
barrd (:GS 5) was used tr7 construct the mosaic because ladfarm features ap 
peared more striking. 'Ihis mssaFc is being used at a base to map re- 
features and ocnpare changes on other imagery ~.'ypes and dates. 
G m m i  ameraye for single EFt!E-1 frames is appmximately 12,500 aquare 
miles. Fbmlution of MSS data was faund to be excellent, al-h e x p o ~ ~ ~ ~ e  
pmblens have been enamntered. Che x e m i r  275 feet aaoss was  m t i f i -  
able on hSS 7. Tk cities of Reno and Las Vegas are easily distingdahable 
77 
P R E D I N G  PAGE BLANK NOT FILNID 
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19730019485 2020-03-17T09:04:48+00:00Z
on all bands. B~~ller towns like E l k 3  and andttle Mountain were easily iden- 
tifiable only on snow covered frames. 
Limited numbers of mads and railroads are visible. Four lane paved 
roads and freeways were visible only when they were in high contrast with 
the adjacent terrain, as was true with two lane paved roads. Many wide dirt 
roads traversing valley bottans were visible due to their high reflectance. 
MSS 7 was superior for identification of all roads. 
USES : 
Our initial evaluations of 3KE-1 were directed to identification and 
determination of resolution. ,econdly, we have been studying uses. The 
first of these has been inventory of natwal resource features. Thirdly, 
w are studying change detection, w h i c h  goes a step b e y o d  inventory and 
provides systemtic time dependent data useful to resource mgers. Ek- 
amples of inventory and & m q e  detection are described below. 
Mxmtains, valleys a& playas, stream courses, canyons, and alluvial 
fans can be easily delineated on ERTS imagery. MSS 5 was found to be the 
mst useful for identification of these general landforrn features. Steep 
canyons were identified easily on MSS 7 where thick phreatophytic vegeta- 
tion occurred. The large valleys and playas were easily identified on all 
bands. Mapping of land use and of other natural resources features is not 
difficult. Early in our studies, evaluated a single frame of 12,500 
square miles in Central Nevada (Table 1). These data were extracted suc- 
cessfully in 3 man days. 
Native vegetation has been plowed and plantad to introduced grasses to 
increase grazing potential. These seedings have been quantified using a mid- 
Septanber ERTS date (Table 2) . The MSS 7 band was 5:s mst usefirl . Seed- 
ings were delineated by county and their acreage canplted fran dot grids, 
millimeter squares and a grid corresponding to sections (1 % w e  mile) . 
Acreage was determined by ownership or  stratia an: public, private, 
OOWlty, Forest Service, Bureau of Iand Managemnt, Indian Reservations and 
other. This was derived by arnparing locations on a newly published 
1:500,000 scale larrd status map of Nevada. Intermediate scdle phomaphy 
over selected portions of the state and field checking by aircraft flights 
have confinned identifications. We expect to update this data and possibly 
identify dates which are mre interpretable. A recently received winter date 
w i t h  cunplete snow cover tended to make the seedings mre obvious and ad- 
ditional oms m e  identified. 
Nammus variations in reflectance were noticed among seedings and are 
attributed to cordition (secodary axcessional patterns), age, recent precip- 
itation, or grazing intensity. These factors will be further evaluated by 
analyzing sequential imagery during +& growing season. 
A ~ca jor objective has been to map the natural vegetation of Ne~ads. TIE 
valleys are sparsely vegetated with shrubby, desert vegetation (Fig. 1) . 
These appeat fine textured on the ERE imagery, and uwlly have a light 
gray tone on all bands, aeLryrmding on soil type. Separations have not yet been 
possible for the i~rthern desert shrub, southern desert shrub, or salt desert 
shrub vegetation exmpt for geographical location and l d o m  position. Soil 
=fa% colors produce mre tonal differences than do the vegetation. 
Table 1. Area .'in square miles of identifiable features for 
one frame of EKE imagery (12,500 sq. mi. ) * of Central Nevada. 
Feature Area (sq. mi.) ' %TotalArea 
low or flat 
. . . . . .  lying areas 1,852 
alluvial fans . . . . . .  4,465 
mountains . . . . . . . .  4,333 
-
'Il0ta.l 12,650 
Feature Area (sq. mi.) 
seedings . . . . . . . .  1,078 
meadows . . . . . . . . .  222 
playas . . . . . . . . .  1,284 
irrigated fields . . . .  134 
* Fram I.D. nwnkr 1018-17592-M 
% Total Area 
Table 2. Seedings w i t h i n  the state of Nevada hroken down by 
cuunty and land status.* 
Land Status 
Public W-ivate Land Acres 
G2?22. Acres - - 8 Acres % - Tbtal 7 
Ch-11. . 1,235 
Douqlas . . .  494 
Elk0 . . . .  317,983 
Eureka. . .  42,344 
Mmboldt . . 83,492 
Uurkr . . .  42,849 
Lincolr. . . .  63,585 
L m . . . .  7,343 
Mineral.. . 1,309 
Nye . . . . .  36,810 
WiaahDe... 4,693 
White Pine . .141,270 
-- 
mtdl 743,407 
M y  tbse counties Mch have seedings are i.ncluk?. 
$ of 
State 
lbtdl 
-
Fig .  1. D M  Valley Warn tMSS 5) . Vegetation IMP[:- is possible on 
+ h e  fraane. m t e d  wkatgrass (1) seedings and wild£ i re scars 
( 2 )  are easy to delineate. 
R;fs task has been very dilFficuLt wi-t t k  aid sf m l ~ r  m i - .  
FUE images have h enhancsed on the 125 -ration's Addm1 vi-, and 
mre reamfly, we have .used mlor ccmposites M e  £ran diazochtane txsns- 
pasencies We found tbt p i n w j u n i p r  can k nraw on w i n t e r  mlor infra- 
red oanposites b u a e  it is the only vegetation t y p  &-biting IR reflee- 
tanee at. this date. W a f t  phDtagraphy is beLy used to ampute different 
pinyunljuniper densities which are c k k e d  to determine if tky can b iden- 
tif id on ERE data. P lant  canmmiti-s will generally hsve tc he larger than 
the I00 S e t  resolution due b Icw contrast be- s t a d s  of different m 
Fmurkt ies .  
Uqwrral and mountain brush mmmit.es uere identified an late 
-/fall h g e r y  before it had los t  its infrared reflectance due to 
leaf f a l l .  O i h ~  types w i l l  be identified on spring and enhanced imagery. 
Salt desert shrub and sagebrush types are being ider.tified by coxrelating 
with lardfarm ard scil types. Wddows I . s y e r  than 300 feet in one dimensi~n 
8re readily visible c- la te  s m r  imagery. For example, a 50 acre meadow 
a t  the base of the Ruby mtains  was readily visible on EIITS. Fence l ine  
contrasts were visible i n  this same area where a differeat ial  grazing in- 
tensity has caused a deterioration in meadow condition across the fence 
line. The color canposite was required for th i s  observation. 
The pinyon/jmiper-northern desert shrub ecotone is being evaluated 
by identifying individual eootones of varying lenqth. The success of ac- 
curately defining these ecotsnes cn ZRTS-1 imagery has b e a  determined 
(Table 3). Color infrared h a s  proven superior and was not a s  susceptable 
to error caused by the apperance of landforms as  was the blacl: and white 
imagery. .%mil amunts of infrared reflectance caused hy the preLLmce of 
pinyon/-juniper is detectable with the Color I R  imagery, thus preventing 
possible Confusion w i t h  other features. Larger scale (1:110,000) RR57F 
phokgrdphy and aerial  reconnaissance have been used to verify the true 
locations of the ecotones. 
With the use of a dot grid and RDS7F photography, t!e m h h m  density 
of pinyorJjuniper that  can be recognized on EVS-1 Color I R  has also been 
determined. It was found that  a density a s  low as 16.4 trees per acre could 
be seen on EKIS-1 Color I R  imagery i f  the trees here close and continuous. 
Areas of pinyon/juniper a s  -11 as 55 acres d d  be seen with a density of 
29.5 trees i ~ e r  acre. A discontinun s arm of pinyon/juniper with a broken 
pattern kvinq trees only on khe 1- slopes of many close ridges shcwed 
suff icieut reflectance to be identified only when the density exceeded 43.9 
tr- pe-r acre. Generally, a pinyodjuniper comnuLity with a density of 30 
tr-s acre and larger than 55-60 acres can be identified 021 EKIS-1 
C ! l o r  I R  imagery. 
Green, healthy f ields ref lect  strotrongly in the infrared and are identi- 
fied easily on color amposites. Failow fields a-ed highly reflective 
on all bands and wzre therefore ixientifiablr. Irrigated f ields viere separ- 
ated fran the non-irrigated f ields and phreatophytic types by their con- 
stant t.a@ am3 heir characteristic straight line borders. MPnerous var- 
iations in reflectance were noted £ran date to date on EKIS imagery mrres- 
wing to Imxesting, watering, fert i l izing,  plowing, etc. 
Wild£he scars, both recent and old, are being invento.ried and mni- 
tor&. A quantitative estimate of the nmber of acres b m e d  may be ob- 
tained easily. We are identifying these burns by relative age: less than 
o m  y s ,  1-10 years, and aver 10 years. nsse are fa i r ly  rough estimates 
and are based on seamday suocession W . u r a l  changes. 
Phreatq4ytic vegetation has been cjrsori ly quantified id- tke 
!&uckee Fiver an2 the Las Vegas Wash, using E 2 E  imagery. A more precise 
inventory of this vegetation w i l l  h made in .  the future and f'easability has 
been establ.i&W. Similar <ata are being obtained for meadow vegetation. 
Standing water surfaces were inventoried using mid-Septmhr imagery 
as a base. %semmirs, lakes and ponds were identified on S S  7 haget3 
(Table 4; Fig. 2) anl named fran existing topgraphic maps. The surface 
able 3. Success of idmtifying the pinym/junim-mrtkrm 
dew* s!mA -ones in "he Greqt Basir.. 
- 
Total m. 
R Success $ Closure- % Failb- P.aluatd 
-
ERE 1-Fall 39.4 45.5 1 5 . 1  
m 1-Fall 33 
Fig. 2. wanid Iake Prate (= 7 ) "  IhL. e2sr of ir:-zltoy,ing w a k r  au;- 
face3 is stmnply &d. Hner. L&? in UP center 1ef.t YBE 
dif f icLLr tz er-3lwtte on 5 .  
Stan l ing  water resources inventory 
£ran selected Nevada Counties. 
Counties 
'Ni . .,a 
K-- ~ a l  
C l a r k  
Douglas 
*.mchill 
Per dung 
mtal in Nevada 
Acres 
-
area bas quant i f id  by acreage using a systan s i ~ l a r  to that c - i b e d  
earlier. Each water surface is being analyzed for area changes cm new 
imagery as it becanes available. These changes can be related tc. water 
consunption, evapration, climatic canditiopls, and amrxlnt of potential 
irrigation water available, a l l  of which are impartant oonsidexati~hs 
in the arid Great Basin. Freezing a d  thawing are also being evaluated. 
A technique is currently being developed to assign a gray scdle value to 
etch water body an each MSS band to oarrelate w i t h  water turbidity. 
Playas, nunmns in Nevada, are interior drainage basins in which 
water drains into and s W  until  it evaporates. 'Ihese playas are a p  
parent on EKIlS imagery thther dry or partially full .  Rre MSS 7 band de- 
tects the water even thDugh it may be only one inch deep. The ISS 4 an3 
5 bands tell us sanething about the quality of t!! water in tkse playas, 
which is often poor. The presence or absence of water in tllese playas 
gives a good irdicaticm of recent precipitatian in and near the lo& water- 
sheds. 
-.puts on a few lakes or reservloirs that are being numitored can p r c ~  
vide ct-selative data that can be extrapolated to rcmte water surfaces. 
For exasnple, the thawing date of a r-ir w i l l  atfect the type of rec- 
reation pkntial. The freezing date of another pand may limit its d u e  
for wate.rfowl use. 
A lack of sequential ERIS-1 axerage during the growing season has 
preclude3 an evaluation of vegetatim pbmlogy changes. Ibmer, signi- 
ficant phenology carparisons have been made w i t h  U-2 data ard offer pranise 
of usefulness in making resaurce ma~genwt decisicms. 
We have related plant phenology to signatures seen on preEKPS dti- 
spectral ard color infrared U-2 w a p h y  flown by MISA. nris 
cjraphy mered our study sites on three to six dates between April 3,1972 
axxi June 14, 1972. 
'Ihe black and white dtispectral '3-2 ban% wxe analyzed by assign- 
starrdard Mumell shades of gray to each vegetation type an each date. The 
infrared bard was faud to be mast valuable in the deteOction of t b  tiarias 
vegetation growth stages. Annual grassland (cheatgrass) and hrushlanl areas 

Table 5. "Gray Scalem* varktims h- jate, 
area, and w q e - b  cauamity on u-2 
iaragery (0.69 - 0.76 micrcmeters) in  1972. 
1. Ris sag&lu*. . . 
2. IawsagamSh. . .  
3. mJntain%rsh. . 
4. cheatgrass.... 
5. .- . . . 
6. H a n i b L < w  :ater . . 
7. Marsh- full. . . 
8. Cattail.. . . . . 
April 20 
4.0 
6.5 
3.0 
4.5 
4.0 
4.5 
2.5 
6.0 
* Gray scale 1- 0.5-9.5 cn tfre -1 Scale. 
-1 iaragery is nell adapted for a 1:1,000,000 scale base map ar 
mosaicfarntappingvesptaticmoverZargelandareas. E&ent3mughaUvege- 
tation eajtcms a m  not visible an the -, the EKPS-1 base mp 
is extreaely valuable in and of itself. Field Irotes, 
flights, and larger scale can be used to nap vegetation that 
cannotbedistinguishedm~limagery. Sepemtialdates,s\mmerto 
w i n t e r ,  significantly hmase the capacity for -tian mapw in the 
Great Basin. 
Pkmlogical changes can be quantitatively described an ERlS-1 im 
agery. This t b  -ty to moit the seqwntial aspects 
of EEFS-1 to s t d y  the dymnics of natural resmmes features of wild 
lands and thus w i d e  to intial resollroe -t decisions. 


ERTS-1 evaluation of natural resources management applications in the Great Basin

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

NASA Technical Reports Server