Mapping the History of Environmental Impacts of Land-Falling Hurricanes in the Southeastern United States - A Demonstration for Isabel

The objective of our research is to develop a framework to perform a systematic and comprehensive analysis of land use, land cover (LULC) change along the historical record of the terrestrial tracks of hurricanes and tropical storms since the beginning of the earth observation satellite era. Here we present a phenological disturbance filter based on MODIS vegetation indices to detect and characterize the impact of Hurricane Isabel, which made landfall on the Outer Banks in North Carolina on 18^th September 2003. The results show that woody wetland areas have a pronounced and localized decrease in phenological activity in the two following years, likely due to the disturbance created by flooding, erosion and wind damage. At the regional scale, we identify a relationship between vegetation stress measured by the persistence of below average EVI anomalies, and the frequency of hurricane and tropical storm in the coastal plain of North Carolina. This analysis also shows a direct link between hurricanes and tropical storms (TS) and drought relief in this region.