During the Summer 2018 Term of NASA’s DEVELOP National Program, participants used geospatial data and technologies to investigate, analyze, and monitor several issues around the world. Some of the topics explored throughout the term included agriculture, invasive species, renewable energy, light and air pollution, extreme weather, changing ecologies, fire, natural disasters, water resources, archaeological preservation, and urbanization. Each project completed by a DEVELOP team is conducted in partnership with agencies or organizations local to the study area. Fundamental to the analytical and geospatial component of each of these projects is NASA Earth science remote sensing data. Several of these projects used data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on board NASA’s Terra and Aqua platforms and distributed by NASA's Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC).

All projects conducted in the Summer Term, as well as in past terms, can be found in the DEVELOP archive.

Featured Project: Infestation Impact on Wildfire Risk

The spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) is known to destroy spruce-based forests. As the forest dies off new species of plants grow in their place. This action changes the ecosystem structure, as is the case in the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, after the mid-1990s beetle infestation. The Kenai Peninsula is now filling in with fire-prone grasslands that put the area at an increased risk for wildfires.

Instruments and Techniques Used

The Kenai Peninsula Disasters Project Team set out to visualize the land cover succession in 5 year increments by conducting a change detection analysis on the land cover classifications using ArcGIS Pro and Landsat data. In addition, the DEVELOP team used Terra and Aqua MODIS Thermal Anomalies and Fire data (MOD14A1 and MYD14A1) from LP DAAC to understand where fires existed in the area during their study period. The team also looked at digital elevation models and temperature data and then incorporated all these datasets into a model, which used Python to assess and map the changes in the risk of wildfires since the infestation.

Major Findings

The maps created from this project were given to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. These maps can aid the refuge in understanding the grassland distribution and fire risk in the area, which helps when making fire management decisions in the future.

If you are interested in learning more about this project, be sure to read a paper the team wrote titled "Satellite-Based Assessment of Grassland Conversion and Related Fire Disturbance in the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska" published in the journal Remote Sensing.

About the NASA DEVELOP National Program

The DEVELOP National Program is part of NASA’s Applied Sciences Program. Participants from around the country join the DEVELOP program for 10-week terms to apply data acquired by NASA Earth-observing satellites to bridge the gap between science and society. DEVELOP participants work with non-profit, local, state, and federal partners to create maps and other products in eight focus areas, including Agriculture & Food Security, Disasters, Ecological Forecasting, Energy, Health and Air Quality, Urban Development, Water Resources, and Transportation & Infrastructure.

Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Publication References

Kenai Peninsula Disasters, NASA DEVELOP National Program, 2018, The Beetles’ Greatest Hits, accessed April 2, 2019, https://youtu.be/cjPPi_Fc5gI (link removed by source).

Hess, K., Cobian, J., Cullen, C, Lenske, V and Ramthun, J., 2018, Kenai Peninsula Disasters: Evaluating Grassland Conversion and the Related Likelihood of Fire Disturbance to Enhance Fire Monitoring and Management in the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, accessed April 2, 2019.