15 FOCUS - FALL 2023 Harnessing technology to monitor an uncertain future Oregon just experienced its driest 20-year-period in the last millennium, and the combined impacts of drought and heat stress on Oregon forests are of great concern to scientists, land managers and the public alike. A multidisciplinary project at the OSU ponderosa pine AmeriFlux sites near Sisters, Oregon, is using advanced systems and sensors technology to probe plant function at remarkably fine spatial scales. Harnessing this technology holds immense potential for estimating carbon uptake, monitoring forest resilience, managing forests and improving ecosystem models. Assistant Professor German Vargas is deploying sensors that measure the attenuation of microwave radiation from global navigation satellite systems, revealing the complex ways in which plant canopies store and use water. Similarly, Charlie Southwick, a Ph.D. student working with Assistant Professor Loren Albert, is combining thermal and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence imagery to understand how photosynthesis responds to temperature stress and water limitation. These “near-surface” remote sensing technologies pave the way for real-time, dynamic monitoring of Oregon’s forests, from now into an uncertain future. While satellite remote sensing has for decades revealed broad scale forest patterns and processes, this new technology allows researchers to probe plant function at a finer scale, crucial to understanding, monitoring and improving our forests in the face of climate change. A snapshot of the remote sensing technology Ph.D. student Charlie Southwick is using to gather forest monitoring data in central Oregon.
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