Nate Benson - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Nate Benson

These data provide on-the-ground estimates of burn severity as estimated by the Composite Burn In... more These data provide on-the-ground estimates of burn severity as estimated by the Composite Burn Index (CBI) for fires that burned between 1994 and 2018. Landsat imagery was subsequently used to develop regression relationships between the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and differenced NBR (dNBR).

This study is motivated by the difficulties land managers face while attempting to simultaneously... more This study is motivated by the difficulties land managers face while attempting to simultaneously maintain the natural role of fire in ecosystems and prevent the spread and proliferation of invasive plants. I developed habitat suitability models to predict the responses of three invasive species to fire and other environmental variables: one species in each of three National Parks. For each species, model comparisons tested whether the inclusion of nationally-available data on burn severity, time since fire, and fire occurrence could improve habitat suitability models relative to non-burn data alone. Each species demonstrated significant responses to fire, although incorporation of fire information into the models improved model performance for some species more than for others. In Yellowstone NP, Linnaria dalmatica was more likely to occur in areas of low burn severity, while in Sequoia & Kings Canyon NP, Cirsium vulgare was more likely to occur in areas of high severity and areas ...

Fire Ecology, 2020

Background The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) program has been providing the fire scie... more Background The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) program has been providing the fire science community with large fire perimeter and burn severity data for the past 14 years. As of October 2019, 22 969 fires have been mapped by the MTBS program and are available on the MTBS website (https://www.mtbs.gov). These data have been widely used by researchers to examine a variety of fire and climate science topics. However, MTBS has undergone significant changes to its fire mapping methodology, the remotely sensed imagery used to map fires, and the subsequent fire occurrence, burned boundary, and severity databases. To gather a better understanding of these changes and the potential impacts that they may have on the user community, we examined the changes to the MTBS burn mapping protocols and whether remapped burned area boundary and severity products differ significantly from the original MTBS products. Results As MTBS data have been used over the course of many years and for man...

2007 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2007

Abstract The USGS and NASA, in conjunction with Colorado State University, George Mason Universit... more Abstract The USGS and NASA, in conjunction with Colorado State University, George Mason University and other partners, have developed the Invasive Species Forecasting System (ISFS), a flexible tool that capitalizes on NASA's remote sensing resource to ...

International Journal of Wildland Fire, 2009

A new monitoring tool called FFI (FEAT/FIREMON Integrated) has been developed to assist managers ... more A new monitoring tool called FFI (FEAT/FIREMON Integrated) has been developed to assist managers with collection, storage and analysis of ecological information. The tool was developed through the complementary integration of two fire effects monitoring systems commonly used in the United States: FIREMON and the Fire Ecology Assessment Tool. FFI provides software components for: data entry, data storage, Geographic Information System, summary reports, analysis tools and Personal Digital Assistant use. In addition to a large set of standard FFI protocols, the Protocol Manager lets users define their own sampling protocol when custom data entry forms are needed. The standard FFI protocols and Protocol Manager allow FFI to be used for monitoring in a broad range of ecosystems. FFI is designed to help managers fulfil monitoring mandates set forth in land management policy. It supports scalable (project- to landscape-scale) monitoring at the field and research level, and encourages coope...

International Journal of Wildland Fire, 2006

Space and airborne sensors have been used to map area burned, assess characteristics of active fi... more Space and airborne sensors have been used to map area burned, assess characteristics of active fires, and characterize post-fire ecological effects. Confusion about fire intensity, fire severity, burn severity, and related terms can result in the potential misuse of the inferred information by land managers and remote sensing practitioners who require unambiguous remote sensing products for fire management. The objective of the present paper is to provide a comprehensive review of current and potential remote sensing methods used to assess fire behavior and effects and ecological responses to fire. We clarify the terminology to facilitate development and interpretation of comprehensible and defensible remote sensing products, present the potential and limitations of a variety of approaches for remotely measuring active fires and their post-fire ecological effects, and discuss challenges and future directions of fire-related remote sensing research.

These data provide on-the-ground estimates of burn severity as estimated by the Composite Burn In... more These data provide on-the-ground estimates of burn severity as estimated by the Composite Burn Index (CBI) for fires that burned between 1994 and 2018. Landsat imagery was subsequently used to develop regression relationships between the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and differenced NBR (dNBR).

This study is motivated by the difficulties land managers face while attempting to simultaneously... more This study is motivated by the difficulties land managers face while attempting to simultaneously maintain the natural role of fire in ecosystems and prevent the spread and proliferation of invasive plants. I developed habitat suitability models to predict the responses of three invasive species to fire and other environmental variables: one species in each of three National Parks. For each species, model comparisons tested whether the inclusion of nationally-available data on burn severity, time since fire, and fire occurrence could improve habitat suitability models relative to non-burn data alone. Each species demonstrated significant responses to fire, although incorporation of fire information into the models improved model performance for some species more than for others. In Yellowstone NP, Linnaria dalmatica was more likely to occur in areas of low burn severity, while in Sequoia & Kings Canyon NP, Cirsium vulgare was more likely to occur in areas of high severity and areas ...

Fire Ecology, 2020

Background The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) program has been providing the fire scie... more Background The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) program has been providing the fire science community with large fire perimeter and burn severity data for the past 14 years. As of October 2019, 22 969 fires have been mapped by the MTBS program and are available on the MTBS website (https://www.mtbs.gov). These data have been widely used by researchers to examine a variety of fire and climate science topics. However, MTBS has undergone significant changes to its fire mapping methodology, the remotely sensed imagery used to map fires, and the subsequent fire occurrence, burned boundary, and severity databases. To gather a better understanding of these changes and the potential impacts that they may have on the user community, we examined the changes to the MTBS burn mapping protocols and whether remapped burned area boundary and severity products differ significantly from the original MTBS products. Results As MTBS data have been used over the course of many years and for man...

2007 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2007

Abstract The USGS and NASA, in conjunction with Colorado State University, George Mason Universit... more Abstract The USGS and NASA, in conjunction with Colorado State University, George Mason University and other partners, have developed the Invasive Species Forecasting System (ISFS), a flexible tool that capitalizes on NASA's remote sensing resource to ...

International Journal of Wildland Fire, 2009

A new monitoring tool called FFI (FEAT/FIREMON Integrated) has been developed to assist managers ... more A new monitoring tool called FFI (FEAT/FIREMON Integrated) has been developed to assist managers with collection, storage and analysis of ecological information. The tool was developed through the complementary integration of two fire effects monitoring systems commonly used in the United States: FIREMON and the Fire Ecology Assessment Tool. FFI provides software components for: data entry, data storage, Geographic Information System, summary reports, analysis tools and Personal Digital Assistant use. In addition to a large set of standard FFI protocols, the Protocol Manager lets users define their own sampling protocol when custom data entry forms are needed. The standard FFI protocols and Protocol Manager allow FFI to be used for monitoring in a broad range of ecosystems. FFI is designed to help managers fulfil monitoring mandates set forth in land management policy. It supports scalable (project- to landscape-scale) monitoring at the field and research level, and encourages coope...

International Journal of Wildland Fire, 2006

Space and airborne sensors have been used to map area burned, assess characteristics of active fi... more Space and airborne sensors have been used to map area burned, assess characteristics of active fires, and characterize post-fire ecological effects. Confusion about fire intensity, fire severity, burn severity, and related terms can result in the potential misuse of the inferred information by land managers and remote sensing practitioners who require unambiguous remote sensing products for fire management. The objective of the present paper is to provide a comprehensive review of current and potential remote sensing methods used to assess fire behavior and effects and ecological responses to fire. We clarify the terminology to facilitate development and interpretation of comprehensible and defensible remote sensing products, present the potential and limitations of a variety of approaches for remotely measuring active fires and their post-fire ecological effects, and discuss challenges and future directions of fire-related remote sensing research.