Project Number: 5409-22610-001-05
Project Type: Trust

Start Date: Oct 01, 2007
End Date: Aug 30, 2009

Objective:
1. Accurately measure PJ canopy and nearest neighbor distances. 2. Accurately measure bare ground in the interspaces between trees. 3. Monitor recruitment and seedling age classes. 4. Develop data for relating canopy diameter to tree mass. 5. Measure the rate of canopy closure, the dynamics of associated herbaceous species, and related changes to ground cover.

Approach:
We will use a 2-camera system to obtain 1- and 10-mm/pixel (GSD), geocoded, nested and simultaneously-acquired, aerial images to monitor piñon-juniper woodland cover, size structure, and understory at a site in central New Mexico. Image analysis will be done using ¿SamplePoint.¿ The area to be surveyed is a 28,000 acre piñon-juniper/grassland ecotone at New Mexico State University¿s Corona Range and Livestock Research Center. Flight transects in E-W direction at 1 mile intervals will be conducted across this area. In the second year of the project we will work with BLM NSTC to test the application of stereo VLSA imagery to measuring PJ above-ground biomass.