Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico Landsat Analysis

Feng, Yanlei; Chambers, Jeff; Negron-Juarez, Robinson; Patricola, Chris; Clinton, Nick; Uriarte, Maria; Hall, Jaz; Collins, William

doi:10.15486/ngt/1419953

Title: Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico Landsat Analysis

Abstract

Hurricane Maria made landfall as a strong Category 4 storm in southeast Puerto Rico on September 20th, 2018. The powerful storm traversed the island in a northwesterly direction causing widespread destruction. This study focused on a rapid assessment of Hurricane Marias impact to Puerto Ricos forests. Calibrated and corrected Landsat 8 image composites for the entire island were generated using Google Earth Engine for a comparable pre-Maria and post-Maria time period that accounted for phenology. Spectral mixture analysis (SMA) using image-derived end members was carried out on both composites to calculate the change in the non-photosynthetic vegetation (Delta-NPV) spectral response, a metric that quantifies the increased fraction of exposed wood and surface litter associated with tree mortality and crown damage from the storm. Hurricane simulations were also conducted using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional climate model to estimate wind speeds associated with forest disturbance. Dramatic changes in forest structure across the entire island were evident from pre- and post-Maria composited Landsat 8 images. A Delta-NPV map for only the forested pixels illustrated significant spatial variability in disturbance, with patterns that associated with factors such as slope, aspect and elevation. An initial order-of-magnitude impact estimate based on previous workmore »« less

Authors:

Feng, Yanlei; Chambers, Jeff; Negron-Juarez, Robinson; Patricola, Chris; Clinton, Nick; Uriarte, Maria; Hall, Jaz; Collins, William

LBNL

Publication Date:: Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2018

Other Number(s):: NGT0084

DOE Contract Number:: DE-AC02-05CH11231

Research Org.:: Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments Tropics; UC Berkeley, LBNL

Sponsoring Org.:: Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research

Subject:: 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

OSTI Identifier:: 1419953

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.15486/ngt/1419953

Citation Formats


                    Feng, Yanlei, Chambers, Jeff, Negron-Juarez, Robinson, Patricola, Chris, Clinton, Nick, Uriarte, Maria, Hall, Jaz, and Collins, William. Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico Landsat Analysis.  United States: N. p., 2018. 
        Web.  doi:10.15486/ngt/1419953.

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                    Feng, Yanlei, Chambers, Jeff, Negron-Juarez, Robinson, Patricola, Chris, Clinton, Nick, Uriarte, Maria, Hall, Jaz, & Collins, William. Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico Landsat Analysis.  United States.  doi:https://doi.org/10.15486/ngt/1419953

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                    Feng, Yanlei, Chambers, Jeff, Negron-Juarez, Robinson, Patricola, Chris, Clinton, Nick, Uriarte, Maria, Hall, Jaz, and Collins, William. 2018.  
"Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico Landsat Analysis".  United States.  doi:https://doi.org/10.15486/ngt/1419953.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1419953. Pub date:Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2018

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@article{osti_1419953,

  title        = {Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico Landsat Analysis},

  author       = {Feng, Yanlei and Chambers, Jeff and Negron-Juarez, Robinson and Patricola, Chris and Clinton, Nick and Uriarte, Maria and Hall, Jaz and Collins, William},

  abstractNote = {Hurricane Maria made landfall as a strong Category 4 storm in southeast Puerto Rico on September 20th, 2018. The powerful storm traversed the island in a northwesterly direction causing widespread destruction. This study focused on a rapid assessment of Hurricane Marias impact to Puerto Ricos forests. Calibrated and corrected Landsat 8 image composites for the entire island were generated using Google Earth Engine for a comparable pre-Maria and post-Maria time period that accounted for phenology. Spectral mixture analysis (SMA) using image-derived end members was carried out on both composites to calculate the change in the non-photosynthetic vegetation (Delta-NPV) spectral response, a metric that quantifies the increased fraction of exposed wood and surface litter associated with tree mortality and crown damage from the storm. Hurricane simulations were also conducted using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional climate model to estimate wind speeds associated with forest disturbance. Dramatic changes in forest structure across the entire island were evident from pre- and post-Maria composited Landsat 8 images. A Delta-NPV map for only the forested pixels illustrated significant spatial variability in disturbance, with patterns that associated with factors such as slope, aspect and elevation. An initial order-of-magnitude impact estimate based on previous work indicated that Hurricane Maria may have caused mortality and severe damage to 23-31 million trees. Additional field work and image analyses are required to further detail the impact of Hurricane Maria to Puerto Rico forests. A minor update to this dataset was posted on April 20, 2018. The previous version is being retired. If you need access to the prior version of the data, email ngee-tropics-archive@lbl.gov.},

  doi          = {10.15486/ngt/1419953},

  journal      = {},

  number       = ,

  volume       = ,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2018},

  month        = {Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2018}

}

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.15486/ngt/1419953

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