Detecting mountain pine beetle red attack damage with EO-1 Hyperion moisture indices

The mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) is the most destructive insect of mature pine forests in western North America. Time series of wetness transformations generated from Landsat imagery have been used to detect mountain pine beetle red attack damage over large areas. With the recent availability of high spatial (QuickBird) and high spectral (Hyperion) resolution satellite sensor imagery, the relationship between spectral moisture indices and levels of red attack damage may be investigated. Six moisture indices were generated from Hyperion data and were compared to the proportion of the Hyperion pixel having red attack damage. Results indicate the Hyperion moisture indices incorporating both the shortwave infrared (SWIR) and near infrared (NIR) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum concurrently, such as the Moisture Stress Index, were significantly correlated to levels of damage (r =0.51; p=0.0001). The results corroborate the hypothesis that changes in foliage moisture resulting from mountain pine beetle attack are driving the broad-scale temporal variation in Landsat derived wetness indices. Furthermore, the results suggest that Hyperion data may be used to map low levels of mountain pine beetle red attack damage over large areas that are not consistently captured with Landsat data