What We Do

REPORT:  Avoided Wildfire Emissions from Fuel Treatments in the C.C. Cragin Watershed, Arizona

The SIG Forestry and Agriculture team used advanced modeling to quantify the potential greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits of the Cragin Watershed Protection Project. Their report showed clear net GHG benefits of wildfire mitigation strategies including a reduced risk of high-severity wildfire (and avoided wildfire emissions, increased carbon sequestration in remaining trees, carbon storage in wood products and delayed regeneration.

“Fire season is a year-round cycle for SIG’s Natural Hazards team. During the active fire season, we are tracking and predicting ongoing wildfires. Off-season, we are typically working on post-wildfire monitoring or supporting NEPA and CEQA efforts for the upcoming season’s fuel reduction projects. Thanks to the hard work of many people on the Pyregence Team, we have open-sourced some of the predictive models available. We always appreciate the opportunity to support pre-fire, during-fire, and post-wildfire planning with our partners across the State of California. For 2023, we will continue to help agencies, communities and land managers prepare for and mitigate against the ever-present risk of wildfires.”

— Jason Moghaddas, SIG Natural Hazards Director

SIG and partner Panorama Environmental spent much of 2022 finalizing a Prescribed Fire Plan as a key part of the Wildland Fire Resiliency Program for the MidPeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD). This program covers over 60,000 acres of preserve wildlands located in Santa Clara, San Mateo, and Santa Cruz counties which are managed by MROSD. The program identifies the areas where new fuel reduction areas and prescribed fire can be utilized to restore local ecosystems and reduce hazardous fuels. It also includes the detailed fuel treatments needed, including costs and a 5-year plan. The program additionally identifies a monitoring plan and preparation of pre-fire planning and resource advisor maps.

“As confirmed by the NOAA report1, the cost of disasters is skyrocketing. Often overlooked is the actual cost of a wildfire. Up to now, this has been a complicated calculation. We are proud of the report we helped prepare in 2022 for the Western Forestry Leadership Coalition introducing a methodology for determining the true cost of wildfires. For 2023, we plan to develop additional tools that will introduce the element of time in assessing ecosystem services, which we believe will be a mindshift for researchers and policy makers.”

— Austin Troy, PhD, SIG Principal and Ecosystem Services Lead

“The SIG Development team had a great year of growth in 2022, and we expect even more in 2023 as we continue to support all parts of SIG. We will focus attention on project-specific initiatives and the development of microservices that automate common processes across the organization. UX and UI are critical to making complex calculations valuable and approachable. Our team is passionate about the work we do at SIG and of our success making climate data available to users of all capabilities.”

— Jordan Combs, SIG Environmental Software Team Leader

SIG partnered with Google, CAL-PSE, and SERVIRAmazonia to pilot Ground, an open-source mapping and data platform built to empower individuals and institutions. Ground enables in-person data collection and works offline—crucial in areas without wireless service—seamlessly connecting to cloud-based storage. The Ground pilot helped developers validate the tool’s need and provided important insights into empowering communities through inclusive technology. As development progresses, SIG will continue contributing to the design and field testing.

Collect Earth Online (CEO) brings science to non-specialists through a free, open-source, intuitive platform. Users interpret satellite imagery to answer environmentally critical questions regarding land cover, land use, forestry, and agriculture. CEO has attracted a dedicated global community of users in more than 50 countries who rely on the platform to drive high-impact work monitoring deforestation and other types of land use change. SIG partners with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, SERVIR (a joint initiative of NASA and USAID, working in partnership with leading technical organizations around the world), SilvaCarbon (an interagency technical cooperation program of the US Government), Google, and other technical partners to develop CEO. We look forward to contributing to the continued development of CEO driven by user needs.

“Open source everything has always been a pillar of SIG. Collaboration, co-development, and multi-group public/private/ academic consortiums are not only the cornerstones to our open science approach but the keys to our success. While we develop proprietary datasets for our clients, our own data remains an open book. This may have come at a high price for growth at our company, as we have refused outside investors who no doubt would demand that our data be locked behind a gate. We want everyone to have access to the world’s top minds working at SIG and to all of SIG’s research and findings.”

— David Saah, PhD, SIG Managing Principal/Co-Founder
— Austin Troy, PhD, SIG Principal/Co-Founder
— Dave Ganz, PhD, SIG Principal/Co-Founder
— Max Moritz, PhD, SIG Principal

In 2022, SIG’s David Saah co-edited Cloud-Based Remote Sensing with Google Earth Engine: Fundamentals and Applications along with Jeffrey A. Cardille, Nick Clinton and Morgan A. Crowley. This open-access textbook on the fundamentals of Google Earth Engine enables users to advance from novice to expert guided by exercises and applied examples of analyses.

Additional SIG team members who authored book chapters include Karis Tenneson, John Dilger, Karen Dyson, Ate Poortinga, Andrea Nicolau, Crystal Wespestad, and Brian Zutta.

“In a crowded field, SIG Carbon stands out for our transparency and methodical approach. We were founded by academics who believe knowledge should flow freely, and to that end our practices are very much an open book. We further help educate land owners, land managers and agencies about this new field. As we enter 2023, we believe our high standards will continue to propel our success.”

— Tim Kramer, Managing Director, SIG Carbon

“The year 2022 was a turning point for Spatial Informatics Group-Natural Assets Laboratory (SIG-NAL). In June, we transitioned to new leadership. We also completed a significant project in Santa Barbara County, developing a Regional Wildlife Mitigation Program (RWMP) with the University of California Santa Barbara. In 2023 we hope to further refine this pilot project into a valuable program for replication in other communities.”

— Graham Weslowski, MESM, SIG-NAL Executive