Project Funding: 2012 - 2016

NRA: 2011 NASA: HyspIRI Preparatory Airborne Activities and Associated Science and Applications   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
There are many properties of biological interest in the coastal ocean, e.g., river plumes, kelp beds, and phytoplankton including harmful algal blooms (HABs), and similar targets at the land/sea interface (e.g. estuaries, coastal lakes). These properties are associated with salinity, temperature and radiation gradients but are spatially aliased with conventional 1 km resolution data. With funding from past NASA projects we have demonstrated that hyperspectral airborne data can be inverted to identify phytoplankton functional types, including discriminating between dinoflagellates and diatoms, a distinction that has been difficult to make using past algorithms and data sets. HyspIRI has the potential to greatly improve our understanding of ecological processes at the land-sea interface due to both improved spatial and spectral resolution. We propose to directly assess whether it can provide adequate signal in these complex systems to address questions of algal bloom dynamics, water quality, and transient responses to (e.g.) human disturbance, river runoff, and red tides. Our objective is to directly test the capabilities of HyspIRI (using AVIRIS or similar) by providing an end-to-end assessment of image acquisition, atmospheric correction, algorithm application, and ground truthing. This will build on ~5 years of airborne campaigns in the Monterey Bay region as part of the NOAA COAST program, NASA COAST-HOPE, and NASA SARP. We will also build on preliminary data collections (COAST-HOPE and SARP) that demonstrated our ability to detect and quantify cyanoHAB events in coastal lakes. Finally, we propose to make the data collected available to partners working on the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Projects so they can evaluate the utility of HyspIRI for monitoring benthic algal mats and habitat restoration in the greater San Francisco Bay area. Monterey Bay is well characterized oceanographically, provides rich historical and ongoing observations, and has been used in the past for both cal/val and science airborne operations including the October 2011 Coastal and Ocean Airborne Science Testbed (COAST) mission conducted using similar parameters as proposed herein. Based on past experience and typical conditions, we expect that an autumn (October) mission will maximize the likelihood of data collection days, minimize cloud cover, and will provide a range of scientifically interesting features, including tidal exchange with Elkhorn Slough, red tides, fall transition, upwelling versus oceanic conditions, and, potentially, a first flush rain event. This is also the peak cyanoHAB period in local lakes and reservoirs. Complementary data collection in other seasons would provide an opportunity to document diatom-dominated upwelling in the coastal ocean (spring), and low biomass (low signal) conditions in winter. This proposal directly builds on the expertise and experience of previous NASA airborne remote sensing programs, including the NASA COAST project. The PIs have a strong track record utilizing the MAS, MASTER, and JPL AVIRIS instruments, and UCSC hosted the HES-CW risk reduction activities prior to the cancellation (by NOAA) of the mission. Data processing, QA/QC, and archive/distribution tasks will heavily leverage the existing ASTL infrastructure as well as separate funding through UARC to develop end-to-end data management for remote sensing, providing exceptional capabilities at modest cost. We will leverage this rich historical data set and ongoing field campaigns funded by other agencies to maximize data and science return for the HyspIRI simulations. This includes access to ship time in both Monterey and Southern California funded by an existing NOAA project.

Publications:

Bausell, J., Kudela, R. 2019. Comparison of two in-water optical profilers in a dynamic coastal marine ecosystem. Applied Optics. 58(27), 7319. DOI: 10.1364/AO.58.007319

Hilton, A., Bausell, J., Kudela, R. 2018. Quantification of Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) Concentration in San Francisco Bay Using Satellite Imagery. Remote Sensing. 10(7), 1110. DOI: 10.3390/rs10071110

Kudela, R. M., Hooker, S. B., Houskeeper, H. F., McPherson, M. 2019. The Influence of Signal to Noise Ratio of Legacy Airborne and Satellite Sensors for Simulating Next-Generation Coastal and Inland Water Products. Remote Sensing. 11(18), 2071. DOI: 10.3390/rs11182071

Kudela, R. M., Palacios, S. L., Austerberry, D. C., Accorsi, E. K., Guild, L. S., Torres-Perez, J. 2015. Application of hyperspectral remote sensing to cyanobacterial blooms in inland waters. Remote Sensing of Environment. 167, 196-205. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2015.01.025

2015 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Poster(s)

• Bringing the Ocean into Finer Focus at the Land-Sea Interface through the NASA COAST, HyspIRI, and OCEANIA Suborbital Missions   --   (Sherry L Palacios, Liane Guild, Raphael Kudela, Stanford B. Hooker, John Morrow, Phil Russell, John Livingston, Kendra Negrey, Juan Luis Torres-Pérez, Meloe Kacenelenbogen, Kirk Knobelspiesse)   [abstract]

More details may be found in the following project profile(s):

• NASA Biological Diversity & Ecological Conservation (BDEC) Project Profile