SelectedWorks - Megan E. Cattau

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Selected Works of Megan E. Cattau

Assistant Professor, Human Environment Systems

Dr. Megan Cattau joined Boise State University in 2019 and is currently an Assistant Professor with Human Environment Systems. She holds a Ph.D. and a Master of Philosophy both from Columbia University from the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, a Master of Environmental Management from Duke University, and a BFA from the University of Georgia. Dr. Cattau is interested in how interacting anthropogenic and biophysical factors alter disturbance regimes and subsequent recovery, and in evaluating the efficacy of intervention options in increasing social-ecological resilience. She uses geospatial techniques on large datasets – including field-based inventories, drone- and plane-based data, and satellite data – to explore the spatial and temporal patterns of disturbance and recovery.

Works
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About Megan E. Cattau

Dr. Megan Cattau joined Boise State University in 2019 and is currently an Assistant Professor with Human Environment Systems. She holds a Ph.D. and a Master of Philosophy both from Columbia University from the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, a Master of Environmental Management from Duke University, and a BFA from the University of Georgia. Dr. Cattau is interested in how interacting anthropogenic and biophysical factors alter disturbance regimes and subsequent recovery, and in evaluating the efficacy of intervention options in increasing social-ecological resilience. She uses geospatial techniques on large datasets – including field-based inventories, drone- and plane-based data, and satellite data – to explore the spatial and temporal patterns of disturbance and recovery.

Articles (21)

Structural Heterogeneity Predicts Ecological Resistance and Resilience to Wildfire in Arid Shrublands (Andrii Zaiats, Megan E. Cattau, David S. Pilliod, et al.) Landscape Ecology (2024)

Context Dynamic feedbacks between physical structure and ecological function drive ecosystem productivity, resilience, and biodiversity maintenance. Detailed maps of canopy structure enable comprehensive evaluations of structure–function relationships. However, these relationships are scale-dependent, and identifying relevant ...

Demography with Drones: Detecting Growth and Survival of Shrubs with Unoccupied Aerial Systems (Peter J. Olsoy, Andrii Zaiats, Donna M. Delparte, et al.) Restoration Ecology (2024)

Large-scale disturbances, such as megafires, motivate restoration at equally large extents. Measuring the survival and growth of individual plants plays a key role in current efforts to monitor restoration success. However, the scale of modern ...

Social Vulnerability of the People Exposed to Wildfires in U.S. West Coast States (Arash Modaresi Rad, John T. Abatzoglou, Erica Fleishman, et al.) Science Advances (2023)

Understanding of the vulnerability of populations exposed to wildfires is limited. We used an index from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess the social vulnerability of populations exposed to wildfire from ...

Forecasting Natural Regeneration of Sagebrush After Wildfires Using Population Models and Spatial Matching (Andrii Zaiats, Megan E. Cattau, David S. Pilliod, et al.) Landscape Ecology (2023)

Context Addressing ecosystem degradation in the Anthropocene will require ecological restoration across large spatial extents. Identifying areas where natural regeneration will occur without direct resource investment will improve scalability of restoration actions. Objectives An ecoregion ...

Cyberinfrastructure Deployments on Public Research Clouds Enable Accessible Environmental Data Science Education (Tyler L. McIntosh, Erick Verleye, Jennifer K. Balch, et al.) PEARC '23: Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (2023)

Modern science depends on computers, but not all scientists have access to the scale of computation they need. A digital divide separates scientists who accelerate their science using large cyberinfrastructure from those who do not, ...

Modern Pyromes: Biogeographical Patterns of Fire Characteristics Across the Contiguous United States (Megan E. Cattau, Adam Mahood, Jennifer K. Balch, et al.) Fire (2022)

In recent decades, wildfires in many areas of the United States (U.S.) have become larger and more frequent with increasing anthropogenic pressure, including interactions between climate, land-use change, and human ignitions. We aimed to characterize ...

Warming Weakens the Night-Time Barrier to Global Fire (Megan E. Cattau) Nature (2022)

Night-time provides a critical window for slowing or extinguishing fires owing to the lower temperature and the lower vapour pressure deficit (VPD). However, fire danger is most often assessed based on daytime conditions, capturing what ...

Comparison of Different Analytical Strategies for Classifying Invasive Wetland Vegetation in Imagery from Unpiloted Aerial Systems (UAS) (Louis Will Jochems, Jodi Brandt, Andrew Monks, et al.) Remote Sensing (2021)

Detecting newly established invasive plants is key to prevent further spread. Traditional field surveys are challenging and often insufficient to identify the presence and extent of invasions. This is particularly true for wetland ecosystems because ...

Fire Prevention in Managed Landscapes: Recent Success and Challenges in Indonesia (Sean Sloan, Luca Tacconi and Megan E. Cattau) Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change (2021)

Indonesian fire events generate significant impacts on ecosystems, society, and climate regionally and globally. Following severe burning in 2015, Indonesia prioritized targeted fire prevention to reduce crop destruction, haze, forest degradation, and carbon emissions. We ...

Risky Development: Increasing Exposure to Natural Hazards in the United States (Megan Cattau) Earth's Future (2021)

Losses from natural hazards are escalating dramatically, with more properties and critical infrastructure affected each year. Although the magnitude, intensity, and/or frequency of certain hazards has increased, development contributes to this unsustainable trend, as disasters ...

Tracking Rates of Postfire Conifer Regeneration vs. Deciduous Vegetation Recovery Across the Western United States (Melanie K. Vanderhoof, Todd J. Hawbaker, Andrea Ku, et al.) Ecological Applications (2021)

Postfire shifts in vegetation composition will have broad ecological impacts. However, information characterizing postfire recovery patterns and their drivers are lacking over large spatial extents. In this analysis, we used Landsat imagery collected when snow ...

Fire as a Fundamental Ecological Process: Research Advances and Frontiers (Megan Cattau) Journal of Ecology (2020)

Fire is a powerful ecological and evolutionary force that regulates organismal traits, population sizes, species interactions, community composition, carbon and nutrient cycling and ecosystem function. It also presents a rapidly growing societal challenge, due to ...

Integrating National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) Airborne Remote Sensing and In-Situ Data for Optimal Tree Species Classification (Victoria M. Scholl, Megan E. Cattau, Maxwell B. Joseph, et al.) Remote Sensing (2020)

Accurately mapping tree species composition and diversity is a critical step towards spatially explicit and species-specific ecological understanding. The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a valuable source of open ecological data across the United ...

Anthropogenic and Lightning‐Started Fires are Becoming Larger and More Frequent Over a Longer Season Length in the U.S.A. (Megan E. Cattau, Carol Wessman, Adam Mahood, et al.) Global Ecology and Biogeography (2020)

Aim Over the past several decades, wildfires have become larger, more frequent, and/or more severe in many areas. Simultaneously, anthropogenic ignitions are steadily growing. We have little understanding of how increasing anthropogenic ignitions are changing ...

Spatiotemporal Prediction of Wildfire Size Extremes with Bayesian Finite Sample Maxima (Maxwell B. Joseph, Matthew W. Rossi, Nathan P. Mietkiewitz, et al.) Ecological Applications (2019)

Wildfires are becoming more frequent in parts of the globe, but predicting whereand when wildfires occur remains difficult. To predict wildfire extremes across the contiguousUnited States, we integrate a 30-yr wildfire record with meteorological and ...

Droughts, Wildfires, and Forest Carbon Cycling: A Pantropical Synthesis (Paulo M. Brando, Lucas Paolucci, Caroline C. Ummenhofer, et al.) Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences (2019)

Tropical woody plants store ∼230 petagrams of carbon (PgC) in their aboveground living biomass. This review suggests that these stocks are currently growing in primary forests at rates that have decreased in recent decades. Droughts ...

Switching on the Big Burn of 2017 (Jennifer K. Balch, Tania Schoennagel, A. Park Williams, et al.) Fire (2018)

Fuel, aridity, and ignition switches were all on in 2017, making it one of the largest and costliest wildfire years in the United States (U.S.) since national reporting began. Anthropogenic climate change helped flip on ...

How Long Do Restored Ecosystems Persist? (J. Leighton Reid, Sarah J. Wilson, Gillian S. Bloomfield, et al.) Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden (2017)

Why do some restored ecosystems persist for centuries while others are quickly converted to alternative land uses or land covers? We propose that restored ecosystems have a temporal dimension that is variable, often finite, and ...

Effectiveness of Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) for Reducing Fires on Oil Palm Concessions in Indonesia from 2012 to 2015 (Megan E. Cattau, Miriam E. Marlier and Ruth DeFries) Environmental Research Letters (2016)

Fire is a common tool for land conversion and management associated with oil palm production. Fires can cause biodiversity and carbon losses, emit pollutants that deteriorate air quality and harm human health, and damage property. ...

An Assessment of Adherence to Basic Ecological Principles by Payments for Ecosystem Service Projects (C. M. Prager, A. Varga, P. Olmsted, et al.) Conservation Biology (2016)

Programs and projects employing payments for ecosystem service (PES) interventions achieve their objectives by linking buyers and sellers of ecosystem services. Although PES projects are popular conservation and development interventions, little is known about their ...

Sources of Anthropogenic Fire Ignitions on the Peat-Swamp Landscape in Kalimantan, Indonesia (Megan E. Cattau and Mark E. Harrison) Global Environmental Change (2016)

Fire disturbance in many tropical forests, including peat swamps, has become more frequent and extensive in recent decades. These fires compromise a variety of ecosystem services, among which mitigating global climate change through carbon storage ...

Post-Fire Hydrologic Analysis: A Tale of Two Severities (Kendra Fallon, Shawn J. Wheelock, Mojtaba Sadegh, et al.) Hydrological Sciences Journal (2024)

Addressing post-fire impacts largely depends on burn “severity.” A singular severity classification that encompasses the holistic effects of fire on all ecosystem processes does not currently exist. Lumping vegetation burn severity and soil burn severity ...

Harnessing Commercial Satellite Technologies to Monitor Our Forests (Brian R. Johnson, Joseph McGlinchy, Megan Cattau, et al.) Remote Sensing and Modeling of Ecosystems for Sustainability XV (2018)

We are seeing tree mortality increase in western U.S. forests and die-off events around the world caused by serve or interacting disturbances like logging, drought, wildfire and pine beetle infestation. Limiting our knowledge of how ...

Toward an Architecture for Subalpine Forest Health Monitoring Using Commercial Off-the-Shelf Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Sensors (Young-Young Shen, Megan E. Cattau, Steve Borenstein, et al.) 17th AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations Conference (2017)

Forests of the western United States have, in recent years, been subjected to increasingly severe disturbance regimes. To study interactions between these disturbances and their impact on forested systems, ecologists have traditionally relied on a ...

Impacts of the 2015 Fire Season on Peat Swamp Forest Biodiversity in Indonesian Borneo (Mark E. Harrison, Bernat Ripoll Capilla, Sara A. Thornton, et al.) 15th International PEAT Congress (IPC 2016): Peatlands in Harmony (2016)