Spectral Assessment of Vegetational Recovery Following the Owyhee Mountains' 2015 Soda Fire
Issue Date
2023-08Keywords
Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR)Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)
dNBR
Wildfire
Sagebrush Steppe
Landsat 8
Advisor
Mason, JenniferMetadata
Show full item recordPublisher
The University of Arizona.Rights
Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.Collection Information
This item is part of the MS-GIST Master's Reports collection. For more information about items in this collection, please contact the UA Campus Repository at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
Between August 10 and August 23, 2015, the Soda Fire burned 279,144 acres of the sagebrush steppe ecosystem in Idaho’s Owyhee and Oregon’s Malheur counties, southwest of Idaho’s capital, Boise. This project attempts to examine, visualize, and explain the impacts of this fire on the sagebrush steppe, while demonstrating the need for boots-on-the-ground perspective to give context to spectral analyses like those used in this study. The dNBR analysis shows a largely net-neutral or positive change in vegetation in comparison to pre-fire values with a mean value of -0.02. An NDVI analysis of 2018 values showed an 11% increase in vegetation health over pre-fire values, while an analysis of values in 2020 showed a 17% increase over pre-fire values.Type
Electronic Reporttext