Quantifying Streambank Sediment in the Upper Cedar Watershed: Insights from Integrating Multispectral Aerial Imagery and Long-term Monitoring Dataset
Abstract
Excess suspended sediment fluxes continue to trigger a wide range of ecological problems and economic losses, such as fish kills and reduced reservoirs storage capacity. Streambank erosion has been identified as a significant contributor to sediment loading and thus suspended sediment in many streams of the Midwestern US. Therefore, it is critical to quantify streambank sediment loading rates over extensive spatial scales, but this is difficult with traditional methods, such as in-situ erosion pins. Recent advances in high-resolution remote sensing (satellite, aerial, and drone-based platforms) have enabled researchers to delineate channel boundaries and estimate streambank erosion rate with automated channel planform models, such as the Automated Aerial Imagery Model (AIMM). Using yearly National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) 1-m resolution aerial photos coupled with 1-m resolution LiDAR-derived DEM, we determined yearly average streambank sediment mass losses (kg/year) along 85km reach of the Upper Cedar watershed, Iowa-Minnesota for a 5-year period. We validated AIMM-derived streambank erosion rates by comparing them to monthly TSS sediment loads derived from paired monitoring gages along the reach. Our analyses provide valuable insight into streambank erosion rates and explores the complementarity of long-term monthly TSS monitoring data and remote-sensing-driven techniques.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2022
- Bibcode:
- 2022AGUFMEP42C1633B