Data Discovery

As a first step in the project I conducted a data discovery and review of the literature. I looked for research in the Southwest on Buffel grass, historical fire regime reconstruction, hydrological impacts of post-fire flooding, remote sensing of wildfires, modelling of wildfire behavior, as well as observational weather data and vegetation maps for the park.

Research documentation:

• Buffel Grass Research
• Hydrological modelling
• Impervious surface modelling
• Remote sensing of burn severity

 GIS Databases

There are numerous sources of online GIS data:

•  Wildfire Decision Support System (WFDSS)
• Fire Severity Mapping System project (FIRESEV)
  * NRCS/USDA data portal for Pima County / Saguaro NP. 
  • The NRCS website has NAIP imagery available, however they only offer 3-bands (R,G, & B), not the NIR band needed for calculating NDVI.
  •  Downloaded, 3m & 10m DEMs, topographic maps (e.g. USGS Quad), SSURGO soil survey (data not available for Saguaro!), Watershed HUC, and NRCS Land cover class maps
• Arizona Imagery Server
  •  Secondary source of NAIP data 
• Draft vegetation map for Saguaro NP
  •  Developed by USGS (Villareal et al. unpublished data).
  • Data use a combination of the 2008 and 2011 LiDAR canopy height classes as well as spectral mixture analysis from LANDSAT.
• Pima Association of Governments LiDAR data.
  • LiDAR Reports: 2005, 2008, 2011

Weather Data

There are two spatially distributed weather services which have continuous data over the park for at least 30 years:

• DAYMET
• PRISM