1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:00,820 2 00:00:00,820 --> 00:00:03,973 3 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:09,460 Hello everyone, I'm super excited to be here today. 4 00:00:09,460 --> 00:00:10,660 I live in New York now 5 00:00:10,660 --> 00:00:12,520 but I grew up in Vermont, I grew up in St. Johnsbury, 6 00:00:12,520 --> 00:00:15,820 so getting to come to Burlington feels like a homecoming. 7 00:00:15,820 --> 00:00:17,530 This work that I'm gonna talk to you about today 8 00:00:17,530 --> 00:00:19,540 was actually part of my undergrad thesis, 9 00:00:19,540 --> 00:00:22,000 but I'm continuing it as part of my master's thesis now 10 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:23,560 at SUNY ESF. 11 00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:24,861 So I'm just gonna get started and get 12 00:00:24,861 --> 00:00:26,500 the important thing out of the way. 13 00:00:26,500 --> 00:00:27,333 We're gonna talk about 14 00:00:27,333 --> 00:00:29,680 What is a Disturbance Detection Algorithm. 15 00:00:29,680 --> 00:00:30,640 So there's a whole bunch of 16 00:00:30,640 --> 00:00:32,590 disturbance detection algorithms, or sometimes 17 00:00:32,590 --> 00:00:34,720 they're called change detection algorithms, out there 18 00:00:34,720 --> 00:00:37,030 and they all operate on the same basic principle, 19 00:00:37,030 --> 00:00:39,490 which is you take a big time series of imagery, 20 00:00:39,490 --> 00:00:41,040 could be imagery from anywhere. 21 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:44,410 You find whatever the baseline condition of that imagery is 22 00:00:44,410 --> 00:00:46,900 and then you look for deviations from that condition, 23 00:00:46,900 --> 00:00:49,840 and we mark those as disturbances or changes. 24 00:00:49,840 --> 00:00:51,580 So all the algorithms that I work with 25 00:00:51,580 --> 00:00:52,840 use satellite imagery. 26 00:00:52,840 --> 00:00:54,760 Satellite imagery is the common input 27 00:00:54,760 --> 00:00:55,780 into these kinds of things. 28 00:00:55,780 --> 00:00:58,600 And specifically a lot of them use Landsat imagery. 29 00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:00,580 So if you're not familiar with the Landsat program, 30 00:01:00,580 --> 00:01:03,730 it's a satellite platform that's been around 31 00:01:03,730 --> 00:01:05,380 since the early eighties, 32 00:01:05,380 --> 00:01:07,960 and it takes images on a 16 day return interval 33 00:01:07,960 --> 00:01:09,370 of the entire globe, which means 34 00:01:09,370 --> 00:01:13,030 there's this absolute wealth of publicly available images 35 00:01:13,030 --> 00:01:15,010 and that's what makes it so popular. 36 00:01:15,010 --> 00:01:18,100 So this here is an example of a Landsat scene 37 00:01:18,100 --> 00:01:19,120 from the Pacific Northwest, 38 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:21,400 and we're looking at the central pixel of that image 39 00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:23,470 and that row there, that's, 40 00:01:23,470 --> 00:01:26,260 this is our time series of values from that pixel. 41 00:01:26,260 --> 00:01:27,820 And you can see there's a baseline condition. 42 00:01:27,820 --> 00:01:29,320 We've got a pretty steady state. 43 00:01:29,320 --> 00:01:30,850 There's a deviation from that condition. 44 00:01:30,850 --> 00:01:32,530 That's our change that we've marked. 45 00:01:32,530 --> 00:01:35,280 And you can see the recovery back to this steady state. 46 00:01:36,640 --> 00:01:38,050 And you might notice that the, 47 00:01:38,050 --> 00:01:39,580 this is kind of a weird looking image. 48 00:01:39,580 --> 00:01:41,380 This isn't, doesn't look like a photograph. 49 00:01:41,380 --> 00:01:43,300 It doesn't look like what you would expect to see 50 00:01:43,300 --> 00:01:45,640 if you're looking at the forest from space. 51 00:01:45,640 --> 00:01:47,320 And that's because these are composite imagery. 52 00:01:47,320 --> 00:01:49,690 These satellites record information not only 53 00:01:49,690 --> 00:01:52,210 about visual reflectance, visual light reflectance 54 00:01:52,210 --> 00:01:54,850 but also infrared reflectance and vegetation's 55 00:01:54,850 --> 00:01:57,040 a really strong reflector of infrared light. 56 00:01:57,040 --> 00:01:58,930 And we can use that information 57 00:01:58,930 --> 00:02:01,630 to help us differentiate forests 58 00:02:01,630 --> 00:02:02,980 from other things that are green. 59 00:02:02,980 --> 00:02:07,150 And so all of the work that you'll see me talk about today, 60 00:02:07,150 --> 00:02:08,470 or if you see other people talking about this, 61 00:02:08,470 --> 00:02:10,690 they're probably using these composites 62 00:02:10,690 --> 00:02:12,460 that include that imagery. 63 00:02:12,460 --> 00:02:15,610 And we can use this reflectance information 64 00:02:15,610 --> 00:02:17,710 and we can track changes in forest canopy cover 65 00:02:17,710 --> 00:02:19,420 remotely out of wide scale. 66 00:02:19,420 --> 00:02:20,890 But then we can also look historically 67 00:02:20,890 --> 00:02:24,134 because we have this wealth of images in the archive. 68 00:02:24,134 --> 00:02:26,500 And so this becomes a very powerful tool 69 00:02:26,500 --> 00:02:27,800 that we have in our hands. 70 00:02:30,040 --> 00:02:30,890 I have a clicker. 71 00:02:33,850 --> 00:02:35,620 Interest in this remote monitoring technology 72 00:02:35,620 --> 00:02:37,810 is really growing in the forestry sector 73 00:02:37,810 --> 00:02:39,040 in the last couple of years. 74 00:02:39,040 --> 00:02:40,450 We're seeing like a skyrocketing 75 00:02:40,450 --> 00:02:42,200 and exponential growth in interest. 76 00:02:43,330 --> 00:02:45,460 And that's because the demand for the benefits 77 00:02:45,460 --> 00:02:48,640 that forests provide is also growing. 78 00:02:48,640 --> 00:02:49,900 There's regulations being passed 79 00:02:49,900 --> 00:02:52,420 all across the United States and all across the world 80 00:02:52,420 --> 00:02:54,340 that emphasize carbon management 81 00:02:54,340 --> 00:02:55,810 or set net zero emissions goals. 82 00:02:55,810 --> 00:02:57,340 So in New York State we have 83 00:02:57,340 --> 00:03:00,280 the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act 84 00:03:00,280 --> 00:03:02,860 that requires net zero emissions by 2050. 85 00:03:02,860 --> 00:03:04,270 There's a very similar legislation 86 00:03:04,270 --> 00:03:06,430 with very similar goals here in Vermont. 87 00:03:06,430 --> 00:03:10,330 And these legislations are putting a lot of pressure 88 00:03:10,330 --> 00:03:11,920 on landowners 89 00:03:11,920 --> 00:03:16,330 to conserve their forest lands and sequester 90 00:03:16,330 --> 00:03:18,830 increased amounts of carbon on their forest lands. 91 00:03:21,640 --> 00:03:23,590 And these programs, just like the longer standing 92 00:03:23,590 --> 00:03:25,150 forest certification programs 93 00:03:25,150 --> 00:03:26,860 that have been around for a long time 94 00:03:26,860 --> 00:03:29,200 require some kind of monitoring and verification 95 00:03:29,200 --> 00:03:31,750 to ensure compliance with their goals. 96 00:03:31,750 --> 00:03:33,902 And the monitoring and verification processes 97 00:03:33,902 --> 00:03:36,280 all of you probably know is expensive 98 00:03:36,280 --> 00:03:38,050 and it's very time consuming. 99 00:03:38,050 --> 00:03:41,200 And so remote monitoring becomes a really 100 00:03:41,200 --> 00:03:44,443 appealing alternative in that situation. 101 00:03:45,310 --> 00:03:47,500 And I just wanna give the caveat that like 102 00:03:47,500 --> 00:03:49,780 I understand that remote monitoring technology 103 00:03:49,780 --> 00:03:52,210 is not everybody's favorite thing. 104 00:03:52,210 --> 00:03:53,710 It can be kind of a hot button issue 105 00:03:53,710 --> 00:03:55,630 when you start talking about watching people from space. 106 00:03:55,630 --> 00:03:57,280 Some people don't like that and I understand it. 107 00:03:57,280 --> 00:03:59,590 It's kind of like big brother-ish. 108 00:03:59,590 --> 00:04:02,800 But the point is, is that technology exists, 109 00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:05,350 it's available online, anyone can use it, 110 00:04:05,350 --> 00:04:07,990 and it's gonna be a part of the future of forestry. 111 00:04:07,990 --> 00:04:10,150 It's gonna be a part of your SFI or your FSC audits, 112 00:04:10,150 --> 00:04:11,200 if it's not already. 113 00:04:11,200 --> 00:04:13,210 It's gonna be a part of your conservation easements, 114 00:04:13,210 --> 00:04:14,170 if it's not already. 115 00:04:14,170 --> 00:04:15,880 It's gonna be a part of carbon credit programs 116 00:04:15,880 --> 00:04:17,170 if it isn't already. 117 00:04:17,170 --> 00:04:19,930 And so if these tools are gonna be out there, 118 00:04:19,930 --> 00:04:22,660 if these tools are being used to assess our forests, 119 00:04:22,660 --> 00:04:25,300 it's important and it's essential, I think, 120 00:04:25,300 --> 00:04:27,490 that they're designed from a forestry perspective 121 00:04:27,490 --> 00:04:28,813 with landowners in mind. 122 00:04:30,190 --> 00:04:32,530 And if that alone isn't enough to convince you 123 00:04:32,530 --> 00:04:33,880 that the remote monitoring techniques 124 00:04:33,880 --> 00:04:36,400 and these remote monitoring tools are important, 125 00:04:36,400 --> 00:04:39,250 like Colby mentioned, had a nice slide about, 126 00:04:39,250 --> 00:04:42,610 studies are proving that these disturbance regimes 127 00:04:42,610 --> 00:04:44,200 in our forests are shifting. 128 00:04:44,200 --> 00:04:45,033 They're shifting now. 129 00:04:45,033 --> 00:04:46,330 They're expected to continue to shift. 130 00:04:46,330 --> 00:04:48,730 We're expecting increased insect pest outbreaks, 131 00:04:48,730 --> 00:04:51,130 increased extreme weather, 132 00:04:51,130 --> 00:04:53,800 and that's gonna change the disturbance regimes that we see. 133 00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:56,110 And we need a way to keep track of those things 134 00:04:56,110 --> 00:04:58,090 quickly and accurately, 135 00:04:58,090 --> 00:05:01,510 so we can see how they're affecting our forests. 136 00:05:01,510 --> 00:05:03,520 So putting all of that together 137 00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:06,340 it's clear that we urgently need these tools 138 00:05:06,340 --> 00:05:08,650 and they need to be accurate and efficient. 139 00:05:08,650 --> 00:05:10,420 And so we can monitor how and when disturbance 140 00:05:10,420 --> 00:05:13,090 is taking place in our forests and understand 141 00:05:13,090 --> 00:05:15,610 how it's affecting ecosystems structure and functions 142 00:05:15,610 --> 00:05:18,820 and to inform our stewardship actions in response. 143 00:05:18,820 --> 00:05:22,240 So like I said, oh, okay, there we go. 144 00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:25,420 We do have these monitoring tools and they are powerful, 145 00:05:25,420 --> 00:05:27,460 but one of the things that we're concerned about with them 146 00:05:27,460 --> 00:05:28,690 is they're they're not developed 147 00:05:28,690 --> 00:05:30,370 in a regionally specific way. 148 00:05:30,370 --> 00:05:31,540 So they're often developed 149 00:05:31,540 --> 00:05:35,110 with a national or global data set. 150 00:05:35,110 --> 00:05:37,390 And as we all know, there's tremendous variation 151 00:05:37,390 --> 00:05:42,160 in forest cover types, vegetation species, 152 00:05:42,160 --> 00:05:44,320 and the disturbance regimes in these areas. 153 00:05:44,320 --> 00:05:49,263 And so we don't wanna apply national models to them. 154 00:05:50,980 --> 00:05:52,480 So just to demonstrate that point, 155 00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:54,253 I have two sets of images here. 156 00:05:55,480 --> 00:05:58,750 Perfect, so these images here are from the Adirondack Park, 157 00:05:58,750 --> 00:06:00,190 which is outside of Newcomb, New York. 158 00:06:00,190 --> 00:06:01,810 And we're looking at a shelter wood harvest. 159 00:06:01,810 --> 00:06:03,550 And these images over here are from Oregon, 160 00:06:03,550 --> 00:06:05,050 just outside the Willamette Valley. 161 00:06:05,050 --> 00:06:07,570 And we're looking at a variety of clearcut harvest. 162 00:06:07,570 --> 00:06:10,180 Each set of images are six years apart. 163 00:06:10,180 --> 00:06:11,950 And you could really see that this shelter wood 164 00:06:11,950 --> 00:06:15,460 this signature of the shelter wood disappears very quickly 165 00:06:15,460 --> 00:06:17,380 and it fades back into the landscape. 166 00:06:17,380 --> 00:06:19,774 Whereas the clear cuts, so look specifically 167 00:06:19,774 --> 00:06:23,920 at this clear cut, six years later looks like that. 168 00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:26,170 So they're much more persistent 169 00:06:26,170 --> 00:06:28,420 and they're much more prominent in the landscape. 170 00:06:28,420 --> 00:06:29,253 And remember if we're looking 171 00:06:29,253 --> 00:06:30,460 at this from a satellite perspective, 172 00:06:30,460 --> 00:06:32,620 we're looking at 30 meter pixels. 173 00:06:32,620 --> 00:06:34,900 So this is a higher resolution image 174 00:06:34,900 --> 00:06:35,830 than the satellite sees. 175 00:06:35,830 --> 00:06:38,050 So you're gonna see this variation here 176 00:06:38,050 --> 00:06:40,600 is gonna be less apparent to the satellite. 177 00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:43,960 And so what we wanted to see, what we wanted to look at is 178 00:06:43,960 --> 00:06:48,700 due to these differences in harvesting regimes, 179 00:06:48,700 --> 00:06:52,210 are they affecting the accuracy of these algorithms? 180 00:06:52,210 --> 00:06:55,240 So we looked at three algorithms that are commonly used. 181 00:06:55,240 --> 00:06:56,590 The continuous change detection 182 00:06:56,590 --> 00:06:59,290 and classification algorithm, which is called CCDC, 183 00:06:59,290 --> 00:07:00,700 the Land Trendr algorithm. 184 00:07:00,700 --> 00:07:02,680 And then the landscape change monitoring system 185 00:07:02,680 --> 00:07:04,900 is actually an ensemble data product 186 00:07:04,900 --> 00:07:08,317 of the outputs of CCDC and Land Trendr. 187 00:07:08,317 --> 00:07:10,390 And here's an example of what the outputs look like 188 00:07:10,390 --> 00:07:11,740 from these algorithms. 189 00:07:11,740 --> 00:07:14,710 So each of those red pixels is a 30 meter by 30 meter pixel 190 00:07:14,710 --> 00:07:16,330 where disturbance was detected 191 00:07:16,330 --> 00:07:18,550 over the 30 year time span of our study. 192 00:07:18,550 --> 00:07:20,500 And you can see that there's a significant variation 193 00:07:20,500 --> 00:07:22,420 in the amount of disturbance that's detected 194 00:07:22,420 --> 00:07:24,490 from each algorithm, but also where the algorithms 195 00:07:24,490 --> 00:07:26,830 are detecting the disturbances. 196 00:07:26,830 --> 00:07:31,600 And we compared these, these outputs from these algorithms 197 00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:35,170 to harvest records that were provided very generously 198 00:07:35,170 --> 00:07:36,490 through our landowner partners. 199 00:07:36,490 --> 00:07:40,000 We have a lovely partnership with the people at F&W Forestry 200 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:42,190 and they gave us all of their harvest records 201 00:07:42,190 --> 00:07:44,860 for 43,000 hectares of forest land in the Adirondack Parks. 202 00:07:44,860 --> 00:07:48,040 That's a huge chunk of land that we were able to look at. 203 00:07:48,040 --> 00:07:50,440 And we had the location and timing of their harvest 204 00:07:50,440 --> 00:07:53,320 as well as the prescription associated with the harvest. 205 00:07:53,320 --> 00:07:55,870 And we were able to compare those to the outputs. 206 00:07:55,870 --> 00:07:57,820 And when we did that, we saw something like this. 207 00:07:57,820 --> 00:08:01,660 So across the board, we saw a higher level of, 208 00:08:01,660 --> 00:08:03,340 with the higher levels of disturbance detection, 209 00:08:03,340 --> 00:08:05,650 we saw higher levels of accuracy. 210 00:08:05,650 --> 00:08:07,300 So I'm just gonna take a second to explain 211 00:08:07,300 --> 00:08:08,950 what you're seeing on the maps here. 212 00:08:08,950 --> 00:08:12,640 So all of this dark blue color on the maps, 213 00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:13,690 those are true positives. 214 00:08:13,690 --> 00:08:16,090 That's where our maps matched our harvest records. 215 00:08:16,090 --> 00:08:17,290 That's really good. 216 00:08:17,290 --> 00:08:19,237 And the rest of the blue, the 217 00:08:19,237 --> 00:08:22,390 the lighter blue color, that's also a match. 218 00:08:22,390 --> 00:08:24,220 Those are true negative detections we call them. 219 00:08:24,220 --> 00:08:25,990 So that's places where there was no harvest 220 00:08:25,990 --> 00:08:27,970 and the algorithm wasn't detecting anything. 221 00:08:27,970 --> 00:08:29,920 But then the things that we really are focusing on 222 00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:31,810 are the errors, the things where we have 223 00:08:31,810 --> 00:08:33,910 a mismatch in the record. 224 00:08:33,910 --> 00:08:37,300 So the orangey color, the darker orange color, 225 00:08:37,300 --> 00:08:39,910 those are areas inside of the harvest polygons 226 00:08:39,910 --> 00:08:41,980 that were not marked by the algorithm. 227 00:08:41,980 --> 00:08:44,380 So we call those false negatives or errors of omission. 228 00:08:44,380 --> 00:08:46,630 That may be a word that some of you are more familiar with. 229 00:08:46,630 --> 00:08:49,750 And then the final one are the false positives. 230 00:08:49,750 --> 00:08:51,340 So that's this yellow color. 231 00:08:51,340 --> 00:08:53,260 And so those are areas that are either 232 00:08:53,260 --> 00:08:56,020 outside of the polygons, we don't have records for that 233 00:08:56,020 --> 00:08:58,273 or the timing doesn't match up. 234 00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:02,530 And so these two error classes, these mismatch classes, 235 00:09:02,530 --> 00:09:04,840 are pretty interesting and I think do a good job 236 00:09:04,840 --> 00:09:06,310 of illustrating the difficulties 237 00:09:06,310 --> 00:09:08,110 with using these programs in our region 238 00:09:08,110 --> 00:09:10,420 and also kind of using them in general. 239 00:09:10,420 --> 00:09:13,180 So with selection harvest and 240 00:09:13,180 --> 00:09:14,830 which is most of what we have here, 241 00:09:14,830 --> 00:09:16,480 there's a lot of variation of what's happening 242 00:09:16,480 --> 00:09:18,820 inside the boundaries of your harvest unit. 243 00:09:18,820 --> 00:09:19,720 Depending on the prescription, 244 00:09:19,720 --> 00:09:21,880 you might have different proportions of leave trees. 245 00:09:21,880 --> 00:09:23,740 You have stream buffers, you have areas that maybe 246 00:09:23,740 --> 00:09:25,990 are inaccessible to your harvesting equipment. 247 00:09:25,990 --> 00:09:27,850 So you really can't expect the algorithms to 248 00:09:27,850 --> 00:09:29,983 produce perfect polygon outlines. 249 00:09:31,090 --> 00:09:32,530 That's just not reasonable. 250 00:09:32,530 --> 00:09:34,270 And then on the other hand, 251 00:09:34,270 --> 00:09:36,040 we've got non harvests related disturbances, 252 00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:38,830 natural disturbances, that happen all of the time 253 00:09:38,830 --> 00:09:40,810 in and outside of our harvest units. 254 00:09:40,810 --> 00:09:42,940 And with this kind of reference data, 255 00:09:42,940 --> 00:09:46,210 you can't assess the accuracy of those things. 256 00:09:46,210 --> 00:09:49,510 So they're false positives, but that doesn't mean 257 00:09:49,510 --> 00:09:50,343 that they don't represent 258 00:09:50,343 --> 00:09:53,650 a real disturbance that happened on the ground. 259 00:09:53,650 --> 00:09:55,180 And that's something that we need to keep in mind 260 00:09:55,180 --> 00:09:56,320 when you're assessing these kind 261 00:09:56,320 --> 00:09:57,520 of products in this way. 262 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:00,400 So of the three products that we looked at here, 263 00:10:00,400 --> 00:10:03,250 the CCDC algorithm is the one that kind of struggles 264 00:10:03,250 --> 00:10:05,050 in this area because it doesn't detect 265 00:10:05,050 --> 00:10:07,120 a very high proportion of disturbance. 266 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:09,170 It doesn't fill these polygons very well, 267 00:10:10,630 --> 00:10:13,240 which sort of leaves it behind the other two. 268 00:10:13,240 --> 00:10:15,430 The Land Trendr algorithm especially is the one 269 00:10:15,430 --> 00:10:18,010 that does the best job of filling the polygons. 270 00:10:18,010 --> 00:10:20,560 But you can see that it also has the highest level 271 00:10:20,560 --> 00:10:23,110 of commission error, these false positive errors. 272 00:10:23,110 --> 00:10:24,520 But again, I just wanna emphasize 273 00:10:24,520 --> 00:10:27,070 that being sensitive to disturbance means 274 00:10:27,070 --> 00:10:29,380 that it could be picking up real things that are happening. 275 00:10:29,380 --> 00:10:31,680 We just don't have the records to assess that. 276 00:10:32,620 --> 00:10:34,987 We also looked at detection by harvest prescription 277 00:10:34,987 --> 00:10:38,620 because our, the shelter would harvest, 278 00:10:38,620 --> 00:10:39,850 selective harvest were the things 279 00:10:39,850 --> 00:10:41,860 that were represented the most in our data set. 280 00:10:41,860 --> 00:10:44,920 And we hypothesized that they were likely not available 281 00:10:44,920 --> 00:10:48,262 at that concentration in the data that was used 282 00:10:48,262 --> 00:10:51,580 when validating this algorithm in its development. 283 00:10:51,580 --> 00:10:52,810 And we thought that they would probably 284 00:10:52,810 --> 00:10:53,980 struggle to detect them. 285 00:10:53,980 --> 00:10:55,210 And that is what we saw. 286 00:10:55,210 --> 00:10:59,290 So on the X axis here, you have our harvest categories 287 00:10:59,290 --> 00:11:02,110 and then the Y axis is the mean percent 288 00:11:02,110 --> 00:11:04,990 of the polygon area detected in those categories. 289 00:11:04,990 --> 00:11:06,550 And you can see that across the board, 290 00:11:06,550 --> 00:11:10,540 we're detecting a fairly low level of the harvest. 291 00:11:10,540 --> 00:11:13,570 We're like at the 30% level at best for most things. 292 00:11:13,570 --> 00:11:15,880 The clear cut category we're performing pretty well in 293 00:11:15,880 --> 00:11:17,080 but we expected that 294 00:11:17,080 --> 00:11:19,660 because those were likely represented in the training data, 295 00:11:19,660 --> 00:11:23,200 they're persistent and pervasive, easy to see. 296 00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:26,890 But with these other harvests, we're just not performing up 297 00:11:26,890 --> 00:11:28,660 to the level that we really need to be able to 298 00:11:28,660 --> 00:11:29,890 use them in this region. 299 00:11:29,890 --> 00:11:32,830 The Land Trendr algorithm, which is the green bars 300 00:11:32,830 --> 00:11:34,540 is giving us the best result. 301 00:11:34,540 --> 00:11:36,280 And so that's something we're taking forward 302 00:11:36,280 --> 00:11:37,603 into our future work. 303 00:11:38,500 --> 00:11:41,920 And then the final thing that we looked at is the CCDC 304 00:11:41,920 --> 00:11:43,750 and Land Trendr algorithms give you estimates 305 00:11:43,750 --> 00:11:47,170 of disturbance magnitude with their outputs. 306 00:11:47,170 --> 00:11:50,200 And we were curious to see if you could use that information 307 00:11:50,200 --> 00:11:53,440 to model the amount of timber volume removed 308 00:11:53,440 --> 00:11:55,540 from the harvest. 309 00:11:55,540 --> 00:11:57,700 And we compared, so we compared it to pulpwood removals 310 00:11:57,700 --> 00:11:59,560 and we found that the Land Trendr algorithm actually 311 00:11:59,560 --> 00:12:02,050 does a fairly good job of modeling that relationship 312 00:12:02,050 --> 00:12:04,030 which is something that is useful 313 00:12:04,030 --> 00:12:05,320 in making management decisions, 314 00:12:05,320 --> 00:12:09,220 knowing that you can use those values to look at 315 00:12:09,220 --> 00:12:10,670 the intensity of the harvest. 316 00:12:12,880 --> 00:12:15,140 So just to recap everything that I've said 317 00:12:16,600 --> 00:12:18,130 we need the regional monitoring tool. 318 00:12:18,130 --> 00:12:20,230 Remote monitoring is gonna be playing an important role 319 00:12:20,230 --> 00:12:21,520 in the future of forest management. 320 00:12:21,520 --> 00:12:23,740 So the tools need to suit the region 321 00:12:23,740 --> 00:12:25,900 and of the tools that we looked at 322 00:12:25,900 --> 00:12:27,280 there's significant room for improvement. 323 00:12:27,280 --> 00:12:29,740 But the Land Trendr algorithm performed the best 324 00:12:29,740 --> 00:12:32,863 at detecting partial harvest and estimating magnitudes. 325 00:12:34,210 --> 00:12:35,860 So finally, I would just like to thank 326 00:12:35,860 --> 00:12:37,660 the Climate Applied Forest Research Institute 327 00:12:37,660 --> 00:12:39,610 that provided the funding for this work 328 00:12:39,610 --> 00:12:42,073 and also our landowner partners, F&W Forestry. 329 00:12:43,652 --> 00:12:46,652 (audience applauds) 330 00:12:51,464 --> 00:12:52,797 Yeah, go ahead. 331 00:12:54,229 --> 00:12:57,372 [Audience Member] You mentioned about 30% of the area of, 332 00:12:57,372 --> 00:13:01,333 30% of the harvest area was impacted with. 333 00:13:03,490 --> 00:13:07,570 Did you look at the, which the number of harvests detected? 334 00:13:08,563 --> 00:13:12,670 Yeah, so we are looking polygon to polygon and so 335 00:13:12,670 --> 00:13:14,500 I I don't have that data in these slides 336 00:13:14,500 --> 00:13:18,220 but we did look at the number of like total misses, 337 00:13:18,220 --> 00:13:21,460 like how many polygons were totally missed by the algorithm. 338 00:13:21,460 --> 00:13:26,460 And the Land Trendr ones on the order of 10 or so. 339 00:13:26,710 --> 00:13:30,520 We're looking at like 170 harvests. 340 00:13:30,520 --> 00:13:35,520 The CCDC algorithm were more in the 60 or 70 harvests 341 00:13:35,620 --> 00:13:36,670 totally missed. 342 00:13:36,670 --> 00:13:38,860 And for the purposes of what we looked at, 343 00:13:38,860 --> 00:13:42,670 we were talking about one pixel in the harvest unit. 344 00:13:42,670 --> 00:13:44,260 If there's one pixel in the harvest unit, 345 00:13:44,260 --> 00:13:45,310 that's not a total miss, 346 00:13:45,310 --> 00:13:49,060 but from an operational perspective, one 30 meter pixel 347 00:13:49,060 --> 00:13:51,855 in a harvest unit, that's kind of a miss. 348 00:13:51,855 --> 00:13:54,310 [Audience Member] And how easy would it be 349 00:13:54,310 --> 00:13:58,660 to confuse the false positives that were the false positives 350 00:13:58,660 --> 00:14:01,660 with the kinda incomplete positives? 351 00:14:05,280 --> 00:14:09,460 Yeah, so you're, you're saying how easy would it be 352 00:14:09,460 --> 00:14:11,770 if you're looking at a map like this 353 00:14:11,770 --> 00:14:15,010 to confuse pixels in an area that there might 354 00:14:15,010 --> 00:14:18,943 have been a harvest with the detection? 355 00:14:19,877 --> 00:14:21,028 [Audience Member] that occurred. 356 00:14:21,028 --> 00:14:24,457 There's a, there's a single that doesn't represent 357 00:14:24,457 --> 00:14:29,140 the area accurately, but it, we know cause 358 00:14:29,140 --> 00:14:31,180 of additional information that it's accurate. 359 00:14:31,180 --> 00:14:36,180 But outside of an experiment we, we look at the positive 360 00:14:36,183 --> 00:14:39,490 and we don't, we're asking ourselves was there a disturbance 361 00:14:39,490 --> 00:14:40,447 or treatment here or not? 362 00:14:40,447 --> 00:14:43,940 And is there other information that you can use to 363 00:14:43,940 --> 00:14:45,107 evaluate that? 364 00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:48,314 The one that is in fact positive is more 365 00:14:48,314 --> 00:14:50,164 like the be positive words 366 00:14:50,164 --> 00:14:51,507 Positive 367 00:14:51,507 --> 00:14:52,480 Or is that just 368 00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:55,690 Some of it has to do with user ability, 369 00:14:55,690 --> 00:14:57,190 how much time you spent looking at the maps? 370 00:14:57,190 --> 00:14:58,810 So I spent a lot of time looking at these maps 371 00:14:58,810 --> 00:15:02,290 and I can look at a map that's from not my study area 372 00:15:02,290 --> 00:15:04,270 and I can make pretty educated guesses 373 00:15:04,270 --> 00:15:07,150 about what's a harvest and what's not a harvest 374 00:15:07,150 --> 00:15:10,240 based on the spacial pattern and the way it shows up. 375 00:15:10,240 --> 00:15:12,550 And that's a big piece of my master's work 376 00:15:12,550 --> 00:15:15,400 is doing spatial analysis and pattern analysis 377 00:15:15,400 --> 00:15:17,800 of these things to try to figure out 378 00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:20,353 if we can attribute harvest or non harvest. 379 00:15:21,490 --> 00:15:26,490 But for example, this, so this area right here, 380 00:15:26,500 --> 00:15:29,230 if I flipped back over to this map, 381 00:15:29,230 --> 00:15:31,930 you'll see that it shows up as a false positive. 382 00:15:31,930 --> 00:15:35,410 But because of the density and the way it's grouped, 383 00:15:35,410 --> 00:15:36,243 it's a harvest. 384 00:15:36,243 --> 00:15:37,076 I've been there in person. 385 00:15:37,076 --> 00:15:39,040 The reason it's a false positive on this map 386 00:15:39,040 --> 00:15:41,920 is because it was harvested right before the land was sold. 387 00:15:41,920 --> 00:15:45,673 So it's not in our harvest records, but it is a harvest. 388 00:15:49,480 --> 00:15:50,313 [Audience Member] Could you take a look 389 00:15:50,313 --> 00:15:52,630 at the accuracy in terms of the timing when it, 390 00:15:52,630 --> 00:15:53,463 Yes. 391 00:15:53,463 --> 00:15:56,590 Yep. Yep, so it has to identify it within the harvest window 392 00:15:56,590 --> 00:16:00,970 and we use a one year leniency period on either side. 393 00:16:00,970 --> 00:16:01,960 If it's a three year harvest, 394 00:16:01,960 --> 00:16:04,000 any detection in the three years is good 395 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:06,040 and then one on either side is good, 396 00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:08,320 but if it, the harvest was in 2017 397 00:16:08,320 --> 00:16:09,910 and the detection is in 2020, 398 00:16:09,910 --> 00:16:12,510 that's outside the window and it's a false positive. 399 00:16:15,580 --> 00:16:16,600 [Audience Member] So I have two questions, 400 00:16:16,600 --> 00:16:19,330 the first is that there seems to be that blue area 401 00:16:19,330 --> 00:16:21,055 in the upper right that all of the different 402 00:16:21,055 --> 00:16:22,613 detection operations found. 403 00:16:22,613 --> 00:16:25,630 Is there something special about that harvest area 404 00:16:25,630 --> 00:16:27,733 that you think made it easier for the, 405 00:16:27,733 --> 00:16:30,206 [Madeline] Are you talking about this one or this one? 406 00:16:30,206 --> 00:16:31,460 [Audience Member] Oh, I didn't even see that top one. 407 00:16:31,460 --> 00:16:32,735 I was talking about the lower one. 408 00:16:32,735 --> 00:16:34,658 [Madeline] This one? 409 00:16:34,658 --> 00:16:36,354 [Audience Member] on the right. 410 00:16:36,354 --> 00:16:37,299 That one. 411 00:16:37,299 --> 00:16:38,612 They all get that. 412 00:16:38,612 --> 00:16:41,780 Is there anything else special about that one? 413 00:16:41,780 --> 00:16:43,600 It's technically a shelter wood. 414 00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:45,190 It's a very heavy shelter wood. 415 00:16:45,190 --> 00:16:46,690 This is on ESF property. 416 00:16:46,690 --> 00:16:48,100 This is an ESF research cut. 417 00:16:48,100 --> 00:16:50,290 So this is another place I've spent a fair amount of time 418 00:16:50,290 --> 00:16:55,090 and I think that my guess for why they pick it up better 419 00:16:55,090 --> 00:16:57,400 is because it's pretty heavy, 420 00:16:57,400 --> 00:17:01,780 but also because of the nature of the property. 421 00:17:01,780 --> 00:17:04,870 Everything around it is left like more alone, 422 00:17:04,870 --> 00:17:06,850 it sees a lot less traffic. 423 00:17:06,850 --> 00:17:09,760 The Huntington ESF property here 424 00:17:09,760 --> 00:17:10,990 is a working research forest, 425 00:17:10,990 --> 00:17:13,960 but the research activities are fairly concentrated. 426 00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:15,390 That's my guess. 427 00:17:15,390 --> 00:17:17,110 [Audience Member] And I guess the second question 428 00:17:17,110 --> 00:17:19,995 is how viable do you think it is to train model 429 00:17:19,995 --> 00:17:22,114 that's specific to data from our region 430 00:17:22,114 --> 00:17:25,020 that might have better prospects of of performance? 431 00:17:25,020 --> 00:17:26,650 So that's what I'm in in the thick of right now, 432 00:17:26,650 --> 00:17:27,493 working on it. 433 00:17:29,353 --> 00:17:30,880 And the answer is, 434 00:17:30,880 --> 00:17:33,640 I think the answer depends on what you consider 435 00:17:33,640 --> 00:17:37,840 to be an improvement and how incremental an improvement is. 436 00:17:37,840 --> 00:17:41,170 One of the things that we're working on is classification. 437 00:17:41,170 --> 00:17:43,390 And the classification stuff I think is gonna be 438 00:17:43,390 --> 00:17:47,860 more regionally specific and more effective regionally 439 00:17:47,860 --> 00:17:49,420 because that's kind of where we're, 440 00:17:49,420 --> 00:17:51,720 I think we're gonna be able to make the gains. 441 00:17:52,840 --> 00:17:55,660 There's this like really careful line you have to walk 442 00:17:55,660 --> 00:17:58,190 when you're doing something like this between 443 00:17:59,170 --> 00:18:03,910 sensitivity and noise and what side of that line 444 00:18:03,910 --> 00:18:07,060 do you wanna end up on? And some of that's application. 445 00:18:07,060 --> 00:18:12,060 So if you are somebody who's doing an audit, 446 00:18:12,070 --> 00:18:15,130 like a carbon credit audit, maybe you have more time 447 00:18:15,130 --> 00:18:17,950 and more resources to chase down and 448 00:18:17,950 --> 00:18:20,590 human validate some of these things on the other end, 449 00:18:20,590 --> 00:18:22,180 like you're using it to pick your spots 450 00:18:22,180 --> 00:18:23,680 where you wanna go out. 451 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:25,030 You might have more time than somebody 452 00:18:25,030 --> 00:18:29,440 who's a consulting forester working for a private landowner. 453 00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:30,490 Does that kind of thing make sense? 454 00:18:30,490 --> 00:18:33,010 So I think it depends on your application 455 00:18:33,010 --> 00:18:34,870 and what you hope to do with it. 456 00:18:34,870 --> 00:18:35,913 [Audience Member] Cool. 457 00:18:39,070 --> 00:18:40,695 Yeah. Aiden. 458 00:18:40,695 --> 00:18:44,278 (audience member question) 459 00:18:54,420 --> 00:18:55,720 I, I hope so. 460 00:18:55,720 --> 00:18:59,620 So I actually, with FEMC gave me a grant 461 00:18:59,620 --> 00:19:02,620 and I spent some time this summer doing field work 462 00:19:02,620 --> 00:19:05,140 going to places we didn't have harvest records for, 463 00:19:05,140 --> 00:19:05,980 going to the pixels 464 00:19:05,980 --> 00:19:08,080 and trying to identify what happened there. 465 00:19:08,080 --> 00:19:10,330 And I'm hoping to use that information to 466 00:19:10,330 --> 00:19:13,813 help train another tuning of the algorithm. 467 00:19:16,435 --> 00:19:18,860 [Audience Member] I love the idea of going pixel. 468 00:19:21,790 --> 00:19:25,405 just practically, how does somebody even begin 469 00:19:25,405 --> 00:19:27,988 to access the data and explore? 470 00:19:31,049 --> 00:19:34,750 So, the easiest thing for anybody to do is to go 471 00:19:34,750 --> 00:19:38,140 to the LCMS website where they have a data explorer. 472 00:19:38,140 --> 00:19:40,480 The product is created for you and then you can look 473 00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:43,630 at wherever you like for like the northern region, 474 00:19:43,630 --> 00:19:47,230 look at the data and you can compare it to your stuff. 475 00:19:47,230 --> 00:19:50,380 If you want the data for yourself to use, 476 00:19:50,380 --> 00:19:53,470 The Land Trendr program runs on Google Earth Engine. 477 00:19:53,470 --> 00:19:58,470 And so it, you can pretty much run their default script 478 00:19:58,690 --> 00:20:00,850 without any coding knowledge. 479 00:20:00,850 --> 00:20:01,810 That's basically what I do. 480 00:20:01,810 --> 00:20:04,453 I like, my knowledge of Python is minuscule, 481 00:20:05,830 --> 00:20:08,950 but they've got a very helpful user guide 482 00:20:08,950 --> 00:20:10,870 and then you can just run it through Google Earth engine 483 00:20:10,870 --> 00:20:13,760 and it's a roster output that, that you can have 484 00:20:14,860 --> 00:20:17,230 on your computer and do whatever you want with it. 485 00:20:17,230 --> 00:20:20,560 So like it is a publicly available open access tool 486 00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:21,610 for anybody to use. 487 00:20:21,610 --> 00:20:23,320 Anybody who wants to can make these maps, 488 00:20:23,320 --> 00:20:25,743 as long as you're willing to read the instructions. 489 00:20:40,799 --> 00:20:43,799 (audience applauds)