Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute

Successful Student Internship ProjectsESRI UC 2015Andrew Stratton

GIT InstructorAndrew.Stratton@bie.edu

SIPI Enrollment

Geospatial Information Technology

GIT Certificate

GIT Associate of Applied Science

Summer GIT Program

www.sipi.edu/acadprog/ate/git

NEON NSF Grant #1441171

http://data.neoninc.org/home

2014 NEON Interns

• Darrell Leighton– Detailed study of precipitation trends in NM

• Allen Elwood– Fires in the Rio Grande Bosque

• Tim Tosa– Geothermal development possibilities in Jemez

Pueblo

New Directions…GIT 290 Special Topics

NSF PAGE Grant Proposal

Isleta Pueblo Restoration Project

Integrated Programs

Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute

Thank you……and now for Allen!

Looking at Burn Areas in the Middle Rio Grande Bosque Between Cochiti Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo

http://www.abqjournal.com/114130/abqnewsseeker/updated-bosque-fire-has-burned-288-acres.html

Objective StatementThe objective of this project is to look at burn areas that have occurred in the

Bosque and if location determines the frequency and size of fires

http://www.abqjournal.com/114130/abqnewsseeker/updated-bosque-fire-has-burned-288-acres.html

http://www.bleachanime.org/forums/showthread.php?t=122099

The Middle Rio Grande Bosque represents the largest cottonwood gallery riparian forest in the southwest United States.

www.city-data.com/forum/albuquerque/1691546-access-rio-grande.html

My Study Area Is A 45 mile subset of the Middle Rio Grande

Materials All fire data was compiled from the USGS Wildfire Wildland Fire website

http://wildfire.cr.usgs.gov

Data collected by Federal land management agencies for fires from 1980-2013

Selected fires for this project are from BIA, BLM, USFS data

Base data from New Mexico State-RGIS clearing house

Boundary data from the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District Division

All data processed created using ESRI ArcGIS software

Created base map using fire data, hydrology, counties, all native lands

Created Slope and hillshade using 10m Digital Elevation Model

Used hillshade to determine the natural river basin

Used Google Earth to digitize Bosque using KMZ/KML

Subset fire data to identify prescribed fires within the area of interest Developed trend lines for size and frequency of fires within the area of interest

Created time line of fires that have occurred from 1980-2013

Methods

Bosque Study Area - Middle Rio Grande

All Fires – 1980 to 2013

• All Fires in region• Noticed Clusters• Subset Fires to study

area

Time Series From 1980-2013

• Increasing size of point indicates acreage of fire

• Notice clusters

Fires Since 1980

• Increasing size of point indicates acreage of fire

• Notice clusters

Fires Since 1980

Ginger Fire

Acres Burned and Number of Fires Per Year

Ginger Fire

Distribution of Fire Types Since 1980

• 4 Natural Caused Fires• 143 Human Caused Fires• 6 Unknown Caused Fires

Addition of Prescribed Fires Since 1980

Ginger Fire

• 3 prescribed fires in 33 years

• Not enough data to include in analysis

http://www.dukecityfix.com/profiles/blogs/bosque-fire-452010

Conclusions• Not seeing a general increase in the size of acres burned• Seeing an increase frequency of fires• Seeing a interesting distribution of fires• Why?

Recommendation For Future Work• Fire intensity (Burn severity index)• Fuel load• Management

Resource allocationsInfrastructure

• Precipitation/Temperature patterns over time

Acknowledgments• Patrick Kozak and Bull Bennett – KIKSAPA Consulting• Maggie Porter, Andrew Stratton and Christel White – SIPI • Eric Wood – USGS• Tribal GIS

• Project Funded By National Science Foundation NSF #1441171

http://petersonlive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/rio-grande-new-mexico.jpg