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Western Geographic Science Center
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The Western Geographic Science Center (WGSC) conducts geographic research on the environmental and societal consequences of a changing landscape. Our tools and models help decision makers better use complex scientific information to understand their alternative options. Our work links natural science and social science to analyze human/environmental interactions both spatially and temporally.
Paul's pub wins!
Paul C. Selmants (center, Research Physical Scientist, WGSC) was awarded a Blue Pencil Award for his USGS Professional Paper 1834: "Baseline and projected future carbon storage and carbon fluxes in ecosystems of Hawai'i".
Read the paperGFSAD30 maps all crops!
The global croplands mapping project has succesfully mapped croplands across the entire planet in order to understand the security of food world wide.
Explore GFSAD30!Projects and teams at WGSC
Just a few examples of WGSC projects and science teams.
Global Food Security-Support Analysis Data at 30 m (GFSAD30)
Hazards Societal Consequences and Risk Communication
Land-Use and Climate Change Team (LUCC)
Applied Landscape Ecology and Remote Sensing
Patterns in the Landscape – Analyses of Cause and Effect (PLACE)
News
WGSC Scientists tour a restoration project
Laura Norman's Aridland Water Harvesting Study helps lead a tour of a restoration and monitoring project at the Boy Scouts of America, Heard Scout Pueblo (HSP) in Phoenix, Arizona.
The GFSAD30 project accomplished their goal!
The global croplands mapping project has succesfully mapped croplands across the entire planet in order to understand the security of food world wide. Below are many press anouncments and interviews with the project leader Prasad Thenkabail.
USGS Scientist Invited to Present for Society for Range Management
Laura Norman was asked to present her study of Watershed Restoration at the Arizona Section Summer Meeting for the Society for Range Management, "Managing for Resilient Rangelands in Southeast Arizona" by the Rangeland Program Manager at the Coronado National Forest.
Publications
Accuracies achieved in classifying five leading world crop types and their growth stages using optimal Earth Observing-1 Hyperion hyperspectral narrowbands on Google Earth Engine
As the global population increases, we face increasing demand for food and nutrition. Remote sensing can help monitor food availability to assess global food security rapidly and accurately enough to inform decision-making. However, advances in remote sensing technology are still often limited to multispectral broadband sensors. Although these...
Aneece, Itiya; Thenkabail, Prasad S. Spaceborne hyperspectral EO-1 hyperion data pre-processing: Methods, approaches, and algorithms
No abstract available.
Thenkabail, Prasad S.; Lyon, J.G.; Huete, Alfredo; Aneece, Itiya P.; Thenkabail, Prasad S.; Lyon, John G.; Huete, Alfredo; Slonecker, Terrance Status of tidal marsh mapping for blue carbon inventories
Remote-sensing-based maps of tidal marshes, both of their extents and carbon stocks, will play a key role in conducting greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories.The U.N. Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre has produced a new Global Distribution of Salt Marsh dataset that estimates global salt marsh area at 5.5 Mha.A Tier 1–2 GHG...
Byrd, Kristin B.; Mcowen, Chris; Weatherdon, Lauren; Holmquist, James; Crooks, Stephen