Project Funding: 2018 - 2021

NRA: 2016 NASA: Group on Earth Observations Work Programme   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
The proposed research will support the GEO Work Programme initiative “Earth Observation for Ecosystem Accounting” (EO4EA) Work Stream 4 for the United States. We seek funding for a postdoctoral researcher who will support a U.S. natural capital accounting working group. This group, jointly funded by the USGS Powell Center and the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, aims to fill data, information, and methodological gaps that hinder the adoption and use of ecosystem accounting for public- and private-sector natural resource management in the U.S. Although the working group has support for meetings and ties to experts in ecology, economics, and spatial modeling, it is in need of a postdoctoral researcher to integrate Earth observation data in support of U.S. ecosystem accounts. As part of the working group’s activities, we propose to develop ecosystem accounts at both the national and subnational scales. These accounts will quantify ecosystem services and their changes over time. It will attribute their supply by ecosystems and their use by economic sectors as described in the U.N. System of Environmental-Economic Accounts. The postdoctoral fellow will run ecosystem service models using a cloud- or supercomputer-based, context-aware modeling system linked to national spatial datasets hosted by USGS and others. These models will be run at the subnational scale (e.g. watershed) and then scaled nationally. Ecosystem services selected for assessment will be chosen based on discussions with experts from federal agencies and academia and from practitioners who have applied accounts internationally and in the private sector. Ecosystem services will be quantified using software platforms like ARIES and InVEST, among others. This research will demonstrate the use of context-aware modeling across large spatial extents in support of national and regional scale policy applications of ecosystem accounts. Code developed for models can be applied to accounting efforts elsewhere. The participation of international experts in the associated working group, including those affiliated with the EO4EA initiative, will enable the diffusion of knowledge from this research across the world. Spatial data to support ecosystem accounting in the U.S. are typically high quality and publicly available. Still, we anticipate the need to generate, impute or extrapolate data needed for modeling. We will assess domestic and international information gaps that can be filled by Earth observation data or other sources. A tool that will be explored for this purpose is Google Earth Engine, a platform that warehouses massive quantities of constantly-updated earth observation data in the cloud, along with a portal which allows for rules to be developed for the classification of those data sets. The proposed work will generate primary data to inform national and subnational ecosystem accounts in the U.S. in support of public- and private-sector ecosystem accounting, along with classification rules for extracting usable information from Earth observation data. In addition, we expect to address the following questions: 1) Which datasets should be used to delineate ecosystems, and how can such information be used to inform an ecosystem classification system for the accounts that goes beyond traditional systems of land cover? 2) How can we best measure ecosystem extent & condition in the U.S., given existing data availability & quality? 3) What data gaps remain, and how can Earth observation data fill these gaps? The postdoctoral fellow, an ecosystem services modeler, would be based at the University of Colorado Denver, working with the PI, Dr. Austin Troy. Dr. Ken Bagstad, an ecosystem service modeler and co-PI of the U.S. ecosystem accounting working group, will serve as an unpaid Co-Investigator, and will liaise with other members of the U.S. natural capital accounting working group who may contribute to the project.

Publications:

Heris, M. P., Foks, N. L., Bagstad, K. J., Troy, A., Ancona, Z. H. 2020. A rasterized building footprint dataset for the United States. Scientific Data. 7(1). DOI: 10.1038/s41597-020-0542-3

Heris, M., Bagstad, K. J., Rhodes, C., Troy, A., Middel, A., Hopkins, K. G., Matuszak, J. 2021. Piloting urban ecosystem accounting for the United States. Ecosystem Services. 48, 101226. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101226

Pourpeikari Heris, M., Bagstad, K. J., Troy, A. R., O'Neil-Dunne, J. P. M. 2022. Assessing the Accuracy and Potential for Improvement of the National Land Cover Database's Tree Canopy Cover Dataset in Urban Areas of the Conterminous United States. Remote Sensing. 14(5), 1219. DOI: 10.3390/rs14051219

Pourpeikari Heris, M., Bagstad, K. J., Troy, A. R., O'Neil-Dunne, J. P. M. 2022. Assessing the Accuracy and Potential for Improvement of the National Land Cover Database's Tree Canopy Cover Dataset in Urban Areas of the Conterminous United States. Remote Sensing. 14(5), 1219. DOI: 10.3390/rs14051219

More details may be found in the following project profile(s):

• NASA Biological Diversity & Ecological Conservation (BDEC) Project Profile