Animation of the Mekong River - Tonle Sap flood pulse

Southeast Asia experiences dramatic swings in precipitation and river flows as a result of the Asian monsoon. Nowhere is this more dramatic than the Mekong River flowing through Cambodia and Vietnam. In Cambodia the mighty Mekong River winds its way across a vast flood plain. During the rainy season the flow of the Mekong increases so much that it reverses the flow of the Tonle Sap River increasing the size of the Tonle Sap Lake by 6 times or more. This animation shows the heart beat of the Mekong River, the annual flood pulse using data derived from Landsat satellites from 1990 to 2015. Some years are omitted due to cloud cover.

To view the animation on YouTube click HERE

New paper - Cheatgrass Die-Offs: A Unique Restoration Opportunity in Northern Nevada

Owen Baughman recently authored "Cheatgrass Die-Offs: A Unique Restoration Opportunity in Northern Nevada" in the journal Rangelands. This nice short piece highlights some of the restoration opportunities presented by cheatgrass die-offs. Cheatgrass die-off is a term that refers when a whole stand of cheatgrass fails to regenerate due to a pathogen.  Usually this results in nearly complete lack of regeneration which can clearly be seen from both high resolution imagery and moderate resolution imagery, such as Landsat. Owen completed his master's thesis in 2014. I'd expect several papers related to his thesis out soon.

This paper also highlights some of the findings from our more detailed paper on remote sensing of cheatgrass die-offs "Development of remote sensing indicators for mapping episodic die-off of an invasive annual grass (Bromus tectorum) from the Landsat archive" in Ecological Indicators. The Great Basin Landscape Ecology Lab continues to explore ways in which remote sensing can be used to map cheatgrass die-offs across the Great Basin and to use imagery to quantify spatial pattern and relate it to climatic and other abiotic factors. Joe Brehm is a current master's student in the lab who is focusing on remote sensing of cheatgrass die-offs for his thesis. I'm looking forward to seeing Joe's findings.