Evaluation of inundation dynamics at Yucatan Lake, Louisiana during the NISAR UAVSAR AMPM campaign.
Abstract
The NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) project conducted a pre-launch airborne SAR (UAVSAR) campaign in the South East USA to study validation of the NISAR ecosystem requirements. The purpose of this `AM/PM' campaign was to collect data to support NISAR algorithm development of science products, and to refine calibration and validation strategies to be employed after the launch of NISAR.
The NASA/JPL UAVSAR L-band SAR periodically acquired data over a variety of ecosystem sites between June and October, 2019, including Yucatan Lake, Louisiana, a NISAR wetlands Cal/Val site. Boat-based surveys using high-resolution GNSS and ADCP instruments were conducted in the riverine and off-river waterbodies. An atmospheric and water level gauge installed inland from the Mississippi River measured more than seven meters of water level change during the time span of the UAVSAR observations. From June through July, inundation was pervasive in this area as the river stage on the Mississippi River hit near record levels. From August through October, water levels dropped significantly and inland inundation extent was substantially reduced. In addition to a lidar-based DEM collected previously, high resolution commercial spaceborne optical imagery from PlanetLabs classified for inundation extent was also obtained when cloud conditions permitted. For this talk, we present results comparing classification of inundation extent for each time period observed from the fully polarimetric UAVSAR data with other estimates of inundation extent utilizing GNSS water level measurements and high-resolution optical imagery. We also compare results utilizing products that emulate expected NISAR performance characteristics derived from the UAVSAR data. Our results show that characteristics of the area surrounding Yucatan Lake, have a wide variety of ecosystem types and inundation, making it a valuable NISAR wetlands Cal/Val site. Portions of this research were conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMB063.0004C
- Keywords:
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- 0434 Data sets;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0452 Instruments and techniques;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0480 Remote sensing;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 1813 Eco-hydrology;
- HYDROLOGY