Aerial Survey of Forest Insect Outbreaks in the Pacific Northwest (1960-2019)
by Pane, Alexander / Borealis Harvested Dataverse·Updated 15d ago
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Available on 2 platforms
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Description
From 1960 to 2019, this dataset records aerially detected forest insect and pathogen disturbances across conifer-dominated forests in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. It contains over 2 million observations of bark beetles and defoliators, with columns for geospatial location, detection year, agent type, and affected area. The data supports analysis of outbreak spatial dynamics, species interactions, and long-term trends in biotic forest disturbances.
Use Cases
Mapping the spatial distribution and spread of bark beetle outbreaks based on geospatial coordinates and year of detection.
Analyzing temporal trends in defoliator activity over a 60-year period using the year column.
Investigating interactions between different biotic disturbance agents (e.g., bark beetles vs. defoliators) using the agent type column.
Quantifying the area impacted by specific forest insect outbreaks using the disturbance area column.
Strengths
Large observational scale with over 2 million rows (2,034,477) covering a 60-year period.
Explicit geospatial and temporal coverage for the Pacific Northwest region of the USA and Canada.
Public domain license (CC0-1.0) enabling unrestricted reuse and analysis.
Limitations
Column names and detailed data dictionary are not provided in the available metadata, requiring reference to an external README.
Some platform entries list incomplete metadata for size, rows, and license, indicating potential inconsistencies in archival records.
Data is a subset of a larger historical archive, so the specific filtering criteria must be understood for reproducibility.
Provenance
Source
Historical aerial surveys archived by the British Columbia Ministry of Forests & Canadian Forest Service and the USDA Forest Service, subset by researcher Alexander Pane.
Collection Method
Aerial detection surveys of forest biotic disturbance agents.
Time Range
1960-2019
Freshness
2026-05-22 06:35:30
Geography
Conifer-dominated forests of Oregon and Washington (USA) and British Columbia (Canada).
The 'one year lag in detection' column is specific to bark beetle damage. The full list of biotic agents is referenced in an external paper (Pane et al. 2026, Table 1).