In 2011, the Institute for Natural Resources – Portland (INR) entered into an agreement with the Natural Resources Conservation Service through the Cooperative Ecosystem Study Unit to assist in evaluation of a targeted watershed restoration area in central Oregon. The primary objective of the agreement was to use remote sensing methodologies and widely available data sets to establish baseline landscape conditions that could be utilized by land managers as a planning tool and a measure of restoration project treatment success.
Products and analysis developed by INR included: 1) A juniper percent canopy cover map for about 20 million acres in eastern Oregon and a juniper canopy cover increase/decrease map for a 17-year time interval between 1994 and 2011; 2) An exploratory analysis examining the feasibility of utilizing historic aerial photos to map historic juniper conditions; 3) A paired watershed analysis in Wheeler county examining outcomes of recent management activities; and 4) An exotic invasive annual map for 4.3 million acres spanning selected weed prioritization areas.
The project was focused on using innovative remote sensing methods to identify the areas with existing juniper and invasive species concentrations. The resulting maps were intended to provide land managers with a preliminary planning tool describing existing baseline conditions across the region to help evaluate the effectiveness of different restoration treatments and identify priority areas for treatments