New Pub: Remote sensing used to look at urban drought response

In this new publication, functionally and seasonally distinctive remote sensing variables were used to quantify changes in urban vegetation canopy conditions during droughts.

Miller, D.L., Alonzo, M., Meerdink, S.K., Allen, M.A., Tague, C.L., Roberts, D.A., McFadden, J.P. (2021) Seasonal and interannual drought responses of vegetation in a California urbanized area measured using complementary remote sensing indices, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 183: 178-195. doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2021.11.002

Naomi interviewed on ‘Who’s your Data?’ podcast

Naomi Tague was recently interviewed by Gilad Barash on his ‘Who’s your Data?‘ podcast about her research predicting and forecasting forest fire frequency and severity, data used in models, machine learning, and her work in developing ways to visualize the results to help officials and the public understand the processes and impacts of fire on our landscapes.

Episode 8: A Fire Episode! Climate Research, Data and YOU

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify

Tague presentation at AI4ESP workshop

Last week Naomi Tague presented “How Big Data and Machine Learning Can Complement Process-based Ecohydrology Models” at the Artificial Intelligence for Earth System Predictability (AI4ESP) workshop.

The AI4ESP initiative is a collaboration between DOE management and laboratories to understand the paradigm shift required to enable AI across the MODEX enterprise, in part by determining the most impactful applications along the observation-modeling continuum.

156 White Papers were solicited for the development and application of AI methods in areas relevant to EESSD research, with an emphasis on quantifying and improving Earth system predictability, particularly related to the integrative water cycle and extreme events. Submitted white papers were used to inform the design of three sequential workshops (conducted in 2021-2022) focused on answering the question:

How can DOE directly leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to engineer a substantial (paradigm-changing) improvement in Earth System Predictability?

New Publication: Impacts on water resources in a low-to-no snow future

In this review paper “A low-to-no snow future and its impacts on water resources in the western United States” in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, author analysis of scientific studies on snow loss use a new low- to-no snow definition that suggests that in approximately 35-60 years, low-to-no-snow winters will become persistent in the western U.S. if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated.

Siirila-Woodburn, E.R., Rhoades, A.M., Hatchett, B.J., Huning, L.S., Szinai, J., Tague, C., Nico, P.S., Feldman, D.R., Jones, A.D., Collins, W.D., Kaatz, L. (2021) A low-to-no snow future and its impacts on water resources in the western United States, Nat Rev. Earth Environ., doi.org/10.1038/s43017-021-00219-y

Carbon/Water tradeoffs & management objectives

New publication in Environmental Research used the RHESSys model to quantify the tradeoffs between carbon sequestration and water fluxes under different climate and land management scenarios in abandoned cropland areas in Mediterranean mountains.

Khorchani, M., Nadal-Romero, E., Lasanta, T., Tague, C. (2021) Carbon sequestration and water yield tradeoffs following restoration of abandoned agricultural lands in Mediterranean mountains, Environmental Research 112203. doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.112203

New publication characterises spatial variation in shallow soil moisture

The goal of this study was to characterise spatial variation in shallow soil moisture at the plot scale by relating the mean of measurements collected in a plot to the standard deviation, as spatial variation of soil moisture over very small areas (<100 m2) can have nonlinear impacts on cycling and flux rates.

Scaife, C.I., Duncan, J.M., Lin, L., Tague, C., Bell, C.D., Band, L. (2021) Are spatial patterns of soil moisture at plot scales generalisable across catchments, climates, and other characteristics? A synthesis of synoptic soil moisture across the Mid-Atlantic, Hydrological Processes 35( 9): e14313. doi.org/10.1002/hyp.14313

Which mechanisms control the change in water yield following a beetle outbreak?

In this new publication, RHESSys is used to explore the mechanisms that control the change in water yield following a beetle outbreak. Results indicate that the response to beetle-caused tree mortality is nonlinear – the direction of water yield change was location specific & driven by inter-annual climate variability, .

Ren, J., Adam, J.C., Hicke, J.A., Hanan, E.J., Tague, C.L., Liu, M., Kolden, C.A., Abatzoglou, J.T. (2021) How does water yield respond to mountain pine beetle infestation in a semiarid forest? Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 25: 4681–4699. doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-4681-2021

Niche-partitioning of soil water resources & higher forest productivity

In this new publication, research revealed fundamental differences in water-use patterns and niche-partitioning of soil water resources among the phylogenetic groups of trees co-occurring in widespread forests around the Mediterranean. RHESSys model simulations show that this partitioning has an important role in the higher productivity of the mixed forest compared to monoculture forests.

Rog, I., Tague, C., Jakoby, G., Megidish, S., Yaakobi, A., Wagner, Y., & Klein, T. (2021) Interspecific soil water partitioning as a driver of increased productivity in a diverse mixed Mediterranean forest, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 126: e2021JG006382. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JG006382