Dr. Susan Ustin | Professor of Environmental and Resource Sciences in the Dept. of Land and Natural Resources | Director of the Center for Spatial Technologies and Remote Sensing (CSTARS) | University of California Davis

Abstract: The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in California is the largest estuary on the west coast of North and South America and is also one of the most modified estuaries in the world. We examined whether the extreme California drought of 2012-2015 favored the spread of non-native species, using NASA’s AVIRIS-next generation data at a ground resolution of 2.5m per pixel, combined with airborne hyperspectral HyMap imagery. We confirmed that the total area invaded by floating macrophytes in the Delta increased many-fold over this period and the composition of this functional group also changed. This study provides insight and understanding of the drought’s impact on invasive potential of an ecosystem.