Dr. Matt Reeves, the researcher behind the Rangeland Vegetation Simulator and the Rangeland Productivity Monitoring Service (RPMS), is doing a monthly podcast interpreting RPMS projections. Called “Reading the Tea Leaves”, he identifies hotspots and trends in rangeland fuels in 7 minutes or less. Find the podcast at https://www.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/events/tealeaves
Projections 2020-06-18
The USGS’ EarthExplorer went down over the weekend so we had a little delay getting new data. But, it’s back up and we just finished new projections using this week’s data. We’re still making new projections every week even as some regions are past their likely peak of season. We’ve been getting very good feedback from forest and fire managers and planners.
We didn’t make a blog post about it, but we also have a new layer that uses our projections to update Landfire’s FBFM40 layer. You can find that at www.fuelcast.net
Projections 2020-04-17
Our first weekly update of rangeland productivity projections is up on our Data page. If you have any questions reach out to Matt Reeves at matt.c.reeves@usda.gov or Robb Lankston at robb@lankstonconsulting.com. Now that we have weekly projections coming out we’ll be putting the information into actionable reports highlighting areas which are showing significant deviation from the annual average production. Look for these reports and updates to the map viewer very soon!
RPMS Version 2
After going radio silent since last growing season and a flurry of activity over the last few months, we’re very excited to show you version 2 of the Rangeland Productivity Monitoring Service (RPMS) projections, now called FuelCast. RPMS remains a joint effort with the USFS on a project envisioned and led by Matt Reeves (matt.c.reeves@usda.gov). Over the winter we completely overhauled the machine learning used to make these projections and switched our engine over to Google’s Earth Engine and Tensorflow so that we could expand our work area outside of just USFS Regions 1 and 4. We now are producing rangeland fuel projections for Region 1, 4, and 6 with updates every week, and are looking into expanding into all of the western US!
After we had our new machine learning pipeline set up, we looked for better ways to distribute the data. This resulting in a partnership with other USFS teams and they have produced the official RPMS map package. Find that HERE. You can download a map package with the projected peak rangeland fuel in pounds per acre, the projected day-of-year of the peak, and comparisons with how this year is projected to compare to previous years. We also have raster layers available to download.
We also have released the first version of our online data viewing app! www.fuelcast.net
We’ll be filling out the descriptions and interactivity of the app incrementally over the next few months. This will be our platform for releasing new products as we develop them, such as fuel models based on our projections.
We’re super excited about all the new developments and the potential for new research opportunities. Look for our weekly updates of the rangeland fuel projections!
Stay healthy out there!
Region 4
Major updates for RPMS Projections! First, we’ve expanded our projections into USFS Region 4, more than doubling the area we’re analyzing. To accommodate this we’ve moved the bulk of our image processing to Google Earth Engine. We were using Earth Engine before as a data exporter, but now it handles all of the spatial data manipulation except for the machine learning itself. This has allowed us to push a massive amount of pixels and get finer resolution (and more area) in our projections.
This update took priority over getting a web map up, but now that the projection system has been updated and automated we’ll be getting the online interface for viewing and downloading data implemented soon.
New data, new graphics
Just posted new projections on the Data Warehouse. Also, we’re posting a new graphic on that same page with updated data every time we update projections, so the graphic will always represent the latest projections we have.
The actual web app is almost done! The backend is ready and we’re just polishing the interface. With this tool, you’ll be able to interact with our projections without having to download them and extract basic data summaries over selected geographic extents.
Projections continue
Our process is working well and we’re getting the weekly rangeland fuel projections out. The last projection used MOD13Q1 NDVI data through February 18, EDDI data through March 17, and precipitation data through March 21. Our sources for the data have been updated and citations can be found on the RPMS page.
The Art of Range Podcast Episode
Matt Reeves, the researcher behind the Rangeland Production Monitoring Service (RPMS), just did an interview on The Art of Range, a podcast produced by Washington State University. In this episode, Matt talks about his history and motivations for studying rangelands, and the usefulness and abilities of the Rangeland Production Monitoring Service. Get the episode here.
Also, we updated our RPMS projections using new data. Find the new projections here.
2019 Rangeland Production Estimates Begin
We’re releasing early estimates of rangeland fuel loads for 2019. We streamlined our data pipeline over the winter and will be releasing weekly updates to our estimate using the latest precipitation, EDDI, and NDVI data. We also have a web map interface in the works for online viewing of data, so stay tuned. Talk to Matt at matt.c.reeves@usda.gov for more information, and get the data on the data page.
Updated Rangeland Production Stack
Peak season has come and gone for rangelands in the US, so we’ve posted an updated production stack link on our data page. We’re going to be working through the winter to enhance our projection software and will be ready to start making new projections next year!