An Object-Based Image Analysis of Pinyon and Juniper Woodlands Treated to Reduce Fuels April Hulet • Bruce A. Roundy • Steven L. Petersen • Ryan R. Jensen • Stephen C. Bunting Received: 24 August 2012 / Accepted: 23 December 2013 / Published online: 9 January 2014 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York (outside the USA) 2014 Abstract Mechanical and prescribed fire treatments are commonly used to reduce fuel loads and maintain or restore sagebrush steppe rangelands across the Great Basin where pinyon (Pinus) and juniper (Juniperus) trees are encroaching and infilling. Geospatial technologies, partic- ularly remote sensing, could potentially be used in these ecosystems to (1) evaluate the longevity of fuel reduction treatments, (2) provide data for planning and designing future fuel-reduction treatments, and (3) assess the spatial distribution of horizontal fuel structure following fuel- reduction treatments. High-spatial resolution color-infrared imagery (0.06-m pixels) was acquired for pinyon and juniper woodland plots where fuels were reduced by either prescribed fire, tree cutting, or mastication at five sites in Oregon, California, Nevada, and Utah. Imagery was taken with a Vexcel UltraCam X digital camera in June 2009. Within each treatment plot, ground cover was measured as part of the Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project. Trimble eCognition Developer was used to classify land cover classes using object-based image analysis (OBIA) techniques. Differences between cover estimates using OBIA and ground-measurements were not consistently higher or lower for any land cover class and when evalu- ated for individual sites, were within ±5 % of each other. The overall accuracy and the K hat statistic for classified thematic maps for each treatment were: prescribed burn 85 % and 0.81; cut and fell 82 % and 0.77, and mastication 84 % and 0.80. Although cover assessments from OBIA differed somewhat from ground measurements, they are sufficiently accurate to evaluate treatment success and for supporting a broad range of management concerns. Keywords eCognition Á Object-based image analysis Á Prescribed burn Á Mastication Á Pinyon–juniper woodlands Á Restoration Introduction Management of shrub steppe communities, particularly those where pinyon (Pinus) and juniper (Juniperus) trees (PJ) are invading and infilling (Romme et al. 2009), are complex and vary across time and space. The use of geo- spatial technologies, such as remote sensing, is a logical approach to rapidly evaluate cover variables found in PJ woodland communities prior to implementing fuel reduc- tion treatments (Hulet et al. 2013), for acquiring appro- priate information to design and plan adaptive management practices over large areas in short time periods (Booth and Tueller 2003; Boyd and Svejcar 2009; Finney 2007), and to determine specific sites where management treatments will Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00267-013-0227-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. A. Hulet (&) USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center, 67826-A Hwy 205, Burns, OR 97720, USA e-mail: april.hulet@oregonstate.edu B. A. Roundy Á S. L. Petersen Brigham Young University - Plant and Wildlife Sciences, Provo, UT, USA R. R. Jensen Department of Geography, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA S. C. Bunting Department of Rangeland Ecology & Management, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844-1135, USA 123 Environmental Management (2014) 53:660–671 DOI 10.1007/s00267-013-0227-1