Wildfires cause widespread destruction and contribute to a host of environmental problems. Now NASA  is using satellite technology to help track the spread of wildfire fuel plants.

When wildfires start and are driven by the wind, they can cause human death, the death of animals, ruin ecosystems for wildlife, and fill the air with greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. Much of the fuel for these fires is being provided by non-native plant species that are invading new territory. Such species as cheatgrass and Medusa head rye are adding to the underbrush fire-fuel loads across the west, making wildfires both more likely and more dangerous.

These invading plant species make deadly wild fires more frequent and and make them burn more intensely. Last year, California alone lost over 900,000 acres to wildfires, just on national forest land.  That number is more than triple the average annual losses over the previous 38 years, according to a San Jose Mercury News story. Scientists are certain that the spread of these non-native plants are part of the cause.

Now, NASA satellites are being used to track the spread of these invading grasses from on high. A chance meeting of two scientists, one from the NASA Ames Research Center and one from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, resulted in a collaboration that is helping to keep the wildfire problems at bay.

Jim Bubenheim is a plant physiologist with NASA and once helped to develop technology to feed future missions to Mars. Ray Carruthers was a USDA researcher that was trying to figure out how to combat the spread of invading species. Between them, they worked out a way to track the spread of those species and figure out which methods were effective for controlling them.

“All the things I would have liked to have done – the things I had dreamed about – he could do those here,” Carruthers related recently, standing next to Bubenheim outside one of the huge metallic growth chambers at Ames. NASA scientist had used these chambers to simulate closed ecosystems to support astronauts in interplanetary space.

The two have discovered that the invading grasses dry at a different rate than the native species, and can thus be differentiated on satellite images. This allows the pair to see the exact areas into which the non-native species are moving. It also allows them to see which methods, used in different areas, are the most effective at combatting that growth. Taken together, the two prongs of this unusual program are yielding good results against invading species. It’s a novel use for satellite technology, with practical application at ground level.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, April 11th, 2009 at 2:12 pm under Green Technology, Science and technology.

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