Remote sensing technology is a tool for detecting invasive species affecting forest, rangeland, and pasture environments. This article provides a review of the technology, and algorithms used to process remotely sensed data when detecting weeds and a working example of the detection of spotted knapweed and babysbreath with a hyperspectral sensor. Spotted knapweed and babysbreath frequently invade semiarid rangeland and irrigated pastures of the western United States. Ground surveys to identify the extent of invasive species infestations should be more efficient with the use of classified images from remotely sensed data because dispersal of an invasive plant may have occurred before the discovery or treatment of an infestation. Remote sensing data were classified to determine if infestations of spotted knapweed and babysbreath were detectable in Swan Valley near Idaho Falls, ID. Hyperspectral images at 2-m spatial resolution and 400- to 953-nm spectral resolution with 12-nm increments were used to identify locations of spotted knapweed and babysbreath. Images were classified using the spectral angle mapper (SAM) algorithm at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10° angles. Ground validation of the classified images established that 57% of known spotted knapweed infestations and 97% of known babysbreath infestations were identified through the use of hyperspectral imagery and the SAM algorithm.

Wildfire regimes are changing across the globe with several ecosystems witnessing more frequent fires across longer fire seasons. The western United States is one such region. The NASA RECOVER Historic Fires Database (HFD) contains all documented wildfires across the western United States occurring between 1950 and 2019 (n = 55,566). This study analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of these wildfires using ArcGIS Pro Geographic Information System (GIS) software to characterize changes in fire frequency, size, and severity over time. Analysis of annual fire frequency and acres burned reveals a near exponential growth in fire frequency (R² = 0.71, P < 0.001) and size (R² = 0.67, P < 0.001) since 1950. A comparison of mean and median acres burned annually suggests the occurrence of mega-fires (wildfires burning more than 100,000 acres) is also increasing. To illustrate this, this study found the mean size of fires occurring in the decade of the 1950s was 1204 acres while in the most recent decade (2010–2019) mean fire size has more than doubled, reaching an average of 3474 acres. The trend in fire severity between 2001 and 2017 used 365 Differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) layers calculated using Landsat or Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. Results suggest fire severity has remained relatively stable in light of increasing fire frequency and size, however more research is required to more fully understand changes in fire severity. The results of this study and other related studies are important as they provide useful information to land managers and policy makers regarding the changing wildfire regime currently being witnessed across the western United States.

Pastoralism is an ancient form of self-provisioning that is still in wide use today throughout the world. While many pastoral regions are the focus of current desertification studies, the long history of sustainability evidenced by these cultures is of great interest. Numerous studies suggesting a general trend of desertification intimate degradation is a recent phenomenon principally attributable to changes in land tenure, management, and treatment. This paper explores the suggested causes of land degradation and identifies the land management and grazing treatments shared by many pastoral cultures. The singular commonality found in nearly all studies of degradation is the prevalence of partial or total rest. While historical observations rightly suggest that desertification is the result of both climatic and anthropic factors, recent focus has been placed upon the effect of sedentarisation. This paper attempts to coalesce these two streams of thinking with particular focus upon inclusive planning processes which may improve arid and semiarid rangeland ecosystems using livestock as a solution to the problem of land degradation.