IRDIAC - Intermountain Region Digital Image Archive Center

The flagship project of the RS/GIS Laboratory, IRDIAC is an online archive of satellite imagery and value-added tools for downloading and use in remote sensing and GIS applications.

SWReGAP Landcover

Completed in 2005, the landcover mapping portion of the Southwest Regional Gap Analysis Project was the specific responsibility of the RS/GIS Laboratory. Both maps and training site databases are available for download through the website.

Biodiversity of the Upper Colorado River Basin and Bonneville Basin

This project provides several datasets containing biodiversity information for the Upper Colorado River and Bonneville Basins. They were created from the Southwest Regional Gap Analysis Project Animal Habitat Models. Each of the datasets derived from those habitat models were added together to get an idea of the number of species (out of 714) that might be found in any given location.

Critical Lands Toolkit

Developed for the Utah Governor's Office of Planning and Budget, the Critical Lands Toolkit offers a means of evaluating critical lands accessible by any citizen, planner, or public official.

Virtual Utah

Virtual Utah offers aerial imagery (photography) for most of the state from 1993/97, 2003, 2004 and 2006.

Fiscal Impacts Illustrator

The Fiscal Impacts Illustrator strives to provide applied planning techniques and information to the local governments and citizens of Utah. The Illustrator focuses on the financial implications associated with the most common land uses (agricultural, commercial, residential).

Spatially Explicit Model of Cougar Habitat

This project uses hierarchical, spatially-explicit models of cougar habitat on an urban-wildland interface on the Oquirrh Mountain range and on a wildland site on Monroe Mountain in the Fishlake National Forest using telemetry data and statistical models within a GIS.

GIS Data Extraction Tool for the USDA Agricultural Research Service

Developed in collaboration with the USDA ARS and Terra Solutions, Inc, this tool allows researchers, land managers, and interested public to rapidly access multiple GIS data layers and perform site characterization and analysis.

Mule Deer Mapping Project

Mule deer habitat areas were delineated on 1:250,000 sheet maps with a minimum mapping unit of approximately 6 square miles. Six categories of mule deer habitat were delineated, with 18 factors limiting or otherwise affecting the habitat. These data were compiled into a GIS database which can be used to assist in management programs such as habitat restorations that cross administrative boundaries.

Remote Sensing of Sagebrush Community Structural Patterns Across Scales

This research evaluated airborne and satellite imagery to detect sagebrush community structural attributes including percent canopy cover, live cover, density, size-vigor, and spatial arrangement of shrubs.

Spatial Analysis Project (SAP) for Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands

The RS/GIS Laboratory worked with the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands to develop a spatial model to assist with real-time decision making and the development of forest stewardship plans.

Sage-Grouse Local Working Group Locator Project

The purpose of the LWG Locator Project is to provide a forum for LWGs to catalogue and share information regarding local conservation efforts with other LWGs, federal and state agencies, and non-governmental organizations concerned with sagebrush habitat management and sage-grouse conservation.

Digital Geologic Maps of Fossil Basin Wyoming

Through an agreement facilitated by the Colorado Plateau Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) the RS/GIS Laboratory is responsible for digitizing geologic field maps scribed on stereo aerial photos and converting these data to a GIS database.

Quantitative Measurement of Neighborhood Characteristics

The objective of this study was to quantitatively measure observed characteristics of different neighborhood types. Many of these characteristics are spatial in nature (e.g. street connectivity, residential home density, etc). Others are socio-demographic in nature and can be obtained from the U.S. Census (e.g. median number of rooms, number of people working outside city of residence, etc.).

Comparison of Current Land Cover Condition to NRCS Ecological Site Descriptions for Box Elder County, Utah

A test case covering Box Elder County located in northwestern Utah was used to evaluate the comparability of the Southwest Regional Gap Analysis (SWReGAP) land cover map and the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) soils database (SSURGO) records ecological site descriptions (ESD).

Rangeland Vegetation Classification

This project sought to overcome problems with the vegetation mapping of the Southwest Regional Gap Analysis (SWReGAP) by developing a strictly empirical classification system based on statistical patterns inherent to the data. Our method applied a variety of multivariate clustering techniques to the field training data collected for the SWReGAP and Landfire mapping projects in the northern Colorado Plateau and eastern Great Basin.

Developing an Empirical Rangeland Cover Legend for the Intermountain West

Our objective is to use the field data collected for the Southwest Regional GAP Analysis Program (SWReGAP) and Landfire projects to develop empirical (derived from data) vegetation classification systems for rangelands in the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau.

Mapping Bromus Tectorum in a sub-region of the Great Basin utilizing the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer

Southwest Regional GAP (SWReGap) analysis vegetation sample points were used to delineate location, presence, and percent cover of cheatgrass. Additional biophysical variables such as elevation, slope, aspect, and soils were included to create a regression tree model delineating current distribution of cheatgrass across a sub-region of the Great Basin.

USU RS/GIS Laboratory | Open Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm | Tel: (435)797-2385 | Contact information