Elena A. MikhailovaClemson University | CU · Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation
Elena A. Mikhailova
PhD Soil Science (Cornell University)
Professor of Soil Science
About
155
Publications
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Introduction
Dr. Mikhailova is internationally recognized for her highly collaborative, multidisciplinary research in the areas of soil geography, soil and water conservation, soil organic and inorganic carbon dynamics, soil ecosystem services, socio-pedology, and soil science education.
Professional website: https://mikhailova.org/
Additional affiliations
August 2001 - present
Publications
Publications (155)
Mapping the distribution of living and dead trees in forests, particularly in ecologically fragile areas where forests serve as crucial ecological environments, is essential for assessing forest health, carbon storage capacity, and biodiversity. Convolutional neural networks, including Mask R-CNN, can assist in rapid and accurate forest monitoring....
Soil-based emissions from land conversions are often overlooked in climate planning. The objectives of this study were to use quantitative data on soil-based greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the state of Georgia (GA) (USA) to examine context-specific (temporal, biophysical, economic, and social) climate planning and legal options to deal with the...
The United Nations (UN) Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) evaluation stresses the need to account for different types of land degradation (LD) as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 15: Life on Land) and UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). For example, one of the indicators, 15.3.1 Proportion of land that is degraded over...
Despite water ecosystems being capable of sustaining biodiversity and enhancing the overall resilience of the urban environment, they are highly susceptible to biological invasions. Invasive aquatic plants (IAPs) threaten the natural environment by reducing the diversity of native aquatic plants and animal communities. Detecting IAPs and mapping th...
The concept of soil quality (SQ) is defined as the soil's capacity to function, which is commonly assessed at the field scale. Soil quality is composed of inherent (soil suitability) and dynamic (soil health, SH) SQ, which can also be analyzed using geospatial tools as a SQ continuum (SQC). This study proposes an innovative spatiotemporal analysis...
The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer an opportunity to improve soil science education on sustainability because they provide specific context to educate faculty and students about SDGs from various disciplines, including Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Soil science is a STEM discipline with a...
Soil makes important contributions to the United Nations (UN) Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) concept and targets; however, currently, soil is not integrated into measurable information (e.g., indicators, metrics) to monitor land degradation (LD) patterns and trends. This study examines the role of soil in LDN in the UN Convention to Combat Deser...
Land, including soil resources, makes important contributions to the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, there are challenges in identifying land/soil measurable information (e.g., indicators, metrics, etc.) to monitor the progress toward achieving these goals. This study examines the role of land/soil in selected SDG...
Individual tree detection and delineation (ITDD) is an important subject in forestry and urban forestry. This study represents the first research to propose the concept of crown resolution to comprehensively evaluate the co-effect of image resolution and crown size on deep learning. Six images with different resolutions were derived from a DJI Unma...
The concept of soil health is increasingly being used as an indicator for sustainable soil management, and even includes legislative actions. Current applications of soil health often lack geospatial and monetary analyses of damages (e.g., land development) which can degrade soil health through loss of carbon (C) and productive soils. This study ai...
Flooding in urban streams can occur suddenly and cause major environmental and infrastructure destruction. Due to the high amounts of impervious surfaces in urban watersheds, runoff
from precipitation events can cause a rapid increase in stream water levels, leading to flooding. With increasing urbanization, it is critical to understand how urban s...
The question of liability (responsibility) for loss and damage (L&D) associated with climate change often ignores the liability for L&D from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which are the source of climate change-related impacts. New York State (NYS) recognizes its responsibility regarding climate change as documented in the NYS Climate Leadership an...
Water quality monitoring for urban watersheds is critical to identify the negative urbanization impacts. This study sought to identify a successful predictive machine learning model with minimal parameters from easy-to-deploy, low-cost sensors to
create a monitoring system for the urban stream network, Hunnicutt Creek, in Clemson, SC, USA. A multip...
Loss and damage (L&D) from climate change result from past and current greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Current definitions of L&D exclude GHG emissions even though they represent L&D to human beings and the environment. This study’s objective was to identify and quantify the L&D from GHG emissions associated with land developments using the state o...
Adaptation of Soil Judging to Libya involves tailoring Soil Judging materials to the country's local context. The objectives of this study were to adapt Soil Judging to Libya and evaluate it in various locations in Libya. Different soil judging handbooks from the United States (US) were used to develop teaching materials for Libya (including tables...
Land cover change can result in soil-based greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Climate Action Plan for the State of Maine in the United States of America (U.S.A.) can benefit from the analysis of land cover change and the value of soil carbon (C) regulating ecosystem services (ES) and disservices (ED). The objectives of this study were to (1) deter...
Casuarina Equisetifolia L. plays a significant role in sandy, coastal regions for sand stabilization and windbreaks. However, C. Equisetifolia forests are susceptible to plant diseases and insect pests, resulting in mortality due to pure stands and a harsh natural environment. Mapping the distribution of C. Equisetifolia and detecting its height ca...
Many climate change “solution” plans include net-zero goals, which involve balancing the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) with their removal. Achieving net-zero goals is particularly problematic for soils because they are often excluded from GHG inventories and reduction plans. For example, Maryland’s Climate Solutions Now Act (Senate B...
Many climate change “solution” plans include net-zero goals, which involve balancing the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) with their anthropogenic removal. Achieving net-zero goals is particularly problematic for soils because they are often excluded from GHG inventories and reduction plans. For example, Maryland’s Climate Solutions Now...
Island ecosystems are susceptible to the considerable impacts of increasing human activities, landscape reconstruction, and urban expansion, resulting in changes in the ecological environment and urban ecological security issues. Remote sensing techniques can achieve the near-real-time ecological environment monitoring of these rapidly changing are...
Conflicts of interest (COI) are an integral part of human society, including their influence on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change. Individuals or entities often have multiple interests ranging from financial benefits to reducing climate change-related risks, where choosing one interest may negatively impact other interests and socie...
Many low-cost particle sensors are available for routine air quality monitoring of PM2.5, but there are concerns about the accuracy and precision of the reported data, particularly in humid conditions. The objectives of this study are to evaluate the Sensirion SPS30 particulate matter (PM) sensor against regulatory methods for measurement of real-t...
The Vermont (VT) Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA, 2020) sets greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions reduction targets at 26% below 2005 by 2025, 40% below 1990 by 2030 and 80% below 1990 by 2050 for energy-related emissions only. Vermont’s omission of GHG emissions from land conversions could result in significant costs of inaction (COI), which could hi...
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from landcover conversions contribute to the total carbon (C) footprint (CF), which is the sum of GHG emissions from various sources and events expressed as carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent. Soil-based emissions from land conversions are often excluded from the total CF, which can lead to underreporting the CF. This st...
Delaware’s (DE) Climate Action Plan lays out a pathway to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 26% by 2025 but does not consider soil-based GHG emissions from land conversions. Consequently, DE’s climate action plan fails to account for the contribution of emissions from ongoing land development economic activity to climate change. Sou...
Interest in a subject matter is a powerful motivation in education. Prior knowledge of students’ interests can be helpful in teaching the concept of ecosystem services (ES) and disservices (ED), which is increasingly being used in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, including soil science. Study objectives were to ev...
Monitoring and assessing vegetation using deep learning approaches has shown promise
in forestry applications. Sample labeling to represent forest complexity is the main limitation for deep learning approaches for remote sensing vegetation classification applications, and few studies have focused on the impact of sample labeling methods on model pe...
The state of Massachusetts (MA) has passed comprehensive climate change legislation and a roadmap of achieving Net Zero emissions in 2050, which includes the protection of environmental resources (e.g., soil) and green space across the state. Soil resources are an integral part of the land cover/land use. They can be a significant source of greenho...
The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has increased in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professions. This means there is a growing need to integrate UAV training into STEM education. This study aimed to develop and evaluate a UAV education module and laboratory exercise for natural resource science students. The stu...
Crowdsourcing is an important tool for collecting spatio-temporal data, which has various applications in education. The objectives of this study were to develop and test a laboratory exercise on soil erosion by water and field data crowdsourcing in an online introductory soil science course (FNR 2040: Soil Information Systems) at Clemson Universit...
Detecting and mapping individual trees accurately and automatically from remote sensing images is of great significance for precision forest management. Many algorithms, including classical methods and deep learning techniques, have been developed and applied for tree crown detection from remote sensing images. However, few studies have evaluated t...
The state of Rhode Island (RI) has established its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goals, which require rapidly acquired and updatable science-based data to make these goals enforceable and effective. The combination of remote sensing and soil information data can estimate the past and model future GHG emissions because of conversion of “l...
Forest measurements using conventional methods may not capture all the important information required to properly characterize forest structure. The objective of this study was to develop a low-cost alternative method for forest inventory measurements and characterization of forest structure using handheld LiDAR technology. Three-dimensional (3D) m...
River systems face negative impacts from development and removal of riparian vegetation that provide critical shading in the face of climate change. This study used supervised deep learning to accurately classify the land cover, including shading, of the Chauga River watershed, located in Oconee County, South Carolina, for 2011 and 2019. The study...
Integration of land cover change with soil information is important for valuation of soil carbon (C) regulating ecosystem services (ES) and disservices (ED) and for site-specific land management. The objective of this study was to assess the change in value of regulating ES from soil or-ganic carbon (SOC), soil inorganic carbon (SIC), and total soi...
Tree-crown and height are primary tree measurements in forest inventory. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are a class of neural networks, which can be used in forest inventory; however, no prior studies have developed a CNN model to detect tree crown and height simultaneously. This study is the first-of-its-kind that explored training a mask re...
Valuation of soil carbon (C) regulating ecosystem services (ES) at the state level is important for sustainable C management. The objective of this study was to assess the value of regulating ES from soil organic carbon (SOC), soil inorganic carbon (SIC), and total soil carbon (TSC) stocks, based on the concept of the avoided social cost of carbon...
Valuation of soil carbon (C) regulating ecosystem services (ES) at the state level is important for sustainable C management. The objective of this study was to assess the value of regulating ES from soil organic carbon (SOC), soil inorganic carbon (SIC), and total soil carbon (TSC) stocks, based on the concept of the avoided social cost of carbon...
Sustainable management of soil carbon (C) at the state level requires valuation of soil C regulating ecosystem services (ES) and disservices (ED). The objective of this study was to assess the value of regulating ES from SOC, SIC, and TSC stocks, based on the concept of the avoided social cost of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for the state of Sout...
The framework of ecosystem services (ES) and disservices (ED) has increasingly been used in various science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, including soil science. The objectives of this study were to use ES/ED concepts to extend and test an existing lecture and laboratory exercise on soil organic carbon (SOC) in an on...
Soil ecosystem services (ES) (e.g., provisioning, regulation/maintenance, and cultural) and ecosystem disservices (ED) are dependent on soil diversity/pedodiversity (variability of soils), which needs to be accounted for in the economic analysis and business decision-making. The concept of pedodiversity (biotic + abiotic) is highly complex and can...
Conventional site index (tree height at base age) may not be suitable for urban trees, therefore it is important to assess its applicability in urban environments. In addition, rapid and non-destructive tree age evaluation methods need to be developed. The objectives of this study were to: (1) develop a rapid and non-destructive method to determine...
Island ecosystems are particularly susceptible to climate change and human activities. The change of land use and land cover (LULC) has considerable impacts on island ecosystems, and there is a critical need for a free and open-source tool for detecting land cover fluctuations and spatial distribution. This study used Google Earth Engine (GEE) to e...
Spatial and temporal changes in land cover have direct impacts on the hydrological cycle and stream quality. Techniques for accurately and efficiently mapping these changes are evolving quickly, and it is of interest to ask how useful these techniques are to address the environmental impact of land cover on riparian buffer areas. The objectives of...
Current applications of the Ecosystems Services (ES) framework to soils are narrowly defined (e.g., soil-based, pedosphere-based, etc.), and focus on soil properties while treating soil as a closed system. Because soil is an open system, it receives and loses matter across its boundaries within Earth’s spheres (atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, l...
Interest in a subject matter can be a powerful driving force in motivating students to be successful learners. Identifying, cultivating, and sustaining subject interest is particularly challenging in introductory classes because of their large size. Soil science is often a required subject for various disciplines. Harnessing students' interests is...
Many soil regulating ecosystem services (ES) are linked to Earth’s atmosphere, but associated monetary values often are unknown or difficult to quantify. Atmospheric deposition of calcium (Ca2+) and magnesium (Mg2+) are abiotic flows (wet, dry, and total) from the atmosphere to land surfaces, which potentially can become available to sequester carb...
Functional riparian areas protect water quality and conserve aquatic systems, plants, and wildlife. Laser-based remote sensing technology offers a high-resolution approach to both characterize and document changes in riparian buffer zones (RBZs). The objectives of this study were to demonstrate a rapid method and model to calculate riparian buffer...
A “soil carbon hotspot” (SCH) is a geographic area having an abundance of soil carbon, and therefore higher ecosystem services value based on avoided social costs of CO2 emissions. Soil organic carbon (SOC), soil inorganic carbon (SIC), and total soil carbon (TSC) are critical data to help identify SCH at the farm scale, but monetary methods of hot...
Recent developments in wireless communication and sensor technology have bolstered the analysis of spatial and temporal variations in hydrometric measurements. With such interactions, hydrometry techniques have evolved from the traditional approach of manual sample collection from fixed sites to distributed in-situ sensing based on wireless sensor...
Land cover change is one of the most important issues facing the landscape of the
Southeastern United States. Land use change impacts the natural environment and it
is critical to understand the location and rate of change in forests near rapidly
urbanizing areas. The objectives of this study are to determine the classes and the
distribution of lan...
Abstract—Water quantity and quality monitoring of urban watercourses have begun to evolve from traditional approaches based on manual observations to more examples of smart sensing based on Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). However, there is an urgent need to leverage the low-cost sensors and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to improve the spat...
Lithospheric-derived resources such as soil texture and coarse fragments are key soil physical properties that contribute to ecosystem services (ES), which can be valued based on “soil” or “mineral” stocks. Soil survey data provides an inexpensive alternative to detailed field measurements which are often labor-intensive, time-consuming, and costly...
Total soil carbon (TSC) is a composite (total) stock, which is the sum of soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil inorganic carbon (SIC). Total soil carbon, and its individual two components, are all important criteria for assessing ecosytems services (ES) and for achieving United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The objective of this...
Soil organic carbon (SOC) generates several ecosystem services (ES), including a regulating service by sequestering carbon (C) as SOC. This ES can be valued based on the avoided social cost of carbon (SC CO2) from the long-term damage resulting from emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). The objective of this study was to assess the value of SOC stocks...
Ecosystem services (ES) often rely on biogeochemical cycles, but values associated with abiotic services are often ignored or underestimated. Ecosystem services from atmospheric magnesium (Mg2+) deposition are abiotic flows (wet, dry, and total), which can be considered a source of naturally-occurring fertilizer and liming material, have not been i...
Carbon sequestered as soil inorganic carbon (SIC) provides a regulating ecosystem service, which can be assigned a monetary value based on the avoided social cost of carbon (SC CO2). By definition, the SC CO2 is a measure, in dollars, of the long-term damage resulting from the emission of a metric ton of carbon dioxide (CO2); therefore, this dollar...
National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) databases are important for quantifying and mapping the contribution of atmospheric deposition to soil provisioning ecosystem services. These databases provide information about the atmospheric deposition of potassium (K⁺) which is an essential element and component of many fertilizing materials. Atmos...
Ecosystem Services (ES) are increasingly being used by many countries around the world as a framework for addressing the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This review article of the usability of Libyan soil databases for ES and SDGs is the first of its kind for North Africa. The objectives of the article are to: describe ava...
Modern technological advances and trends require new pedagogy and delivery of mapping materials to prepare the future workforce in the disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) for an increasingly technology-dominated society. The purpose of this study was to develop an Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) S...
Atmospheric resources are very important for assessing ecosystem services at different administrative levels (e.g., state, region etc.). Quantification of atmospheric calcium (Ca2+) deposition on the total basis provides incomplete information about the ecosystem services flows (both “natural” and “human-derived”), therefore lacking a systems appro...
Turbidity of surface water is a major environmental and human health issue in the United States. This study integrated two years (01/01/2015 to 12/31/2016) of high frequency in situ turbidity and stream flow data with daily Next Generation Radar rainfall data for nine Intelligent River sensors in order to learn about river-scale turbidity dynamics...