The Need for a New Moderate Resolution Water Mask for Earth Science
Mark
Carroll, University of Maryland, College Park, markc@umd.edu
(Presenting)
John
Townshend, University of Maryland, College Park, jtownshe@umd.edu
Charlene
DiMiceli, University of Maryland, College Park, cdimicel@umd.edu
Robert
Sohlberg, University of Maryland, College Park, sohlberg@umd.edu
Praveen
Noojipady, University of Maryland, College Park, pnoojipady@umd.edu
Accurate depiction of the land and water is critical for the production of land surface parameters from remote sensing data products. These parameters include, land surface temperature (Wan et al, 2002), active fires (Justice et al, 2002), and surface reflectance (Vermote et al, 2002) as well as the cloud mask (Strabala, 2004).
Historically many global databases have been created to depict global surface water. These databases still fall short of the needs of the terrestrial remote sensing community at a 250m resolution.
Currently available databases have documented problems in relation to their completeness of coverage, spatial resolution and locational accuracy. The most recent attempt to address the problem was using the SRTM data set to create the SRTM Water Body Data (SWBD) set (SWBD, 2005). The SWBD represents a good first step but still requires additional work to expand the spatial coverage to a global scale and to address remaining discontinuities in major river networks.
A new product could be created using the SWBD in combination with MODIS 250m data to create a complete global map of surface water at 250 m spatial resolution. The result would be an internally consistent moderate resolution water mask to replace the existing available data.
References:
Justice, C., Giglio, L., Korontzi, S., Owens, J., Morisette, J., Roy, D., Descloitres, J., Alleaume, S., Petitcolin, F., and Kaufman, Y. 2002. The MODIS fire products, Remote Sensing of Environment, 83(1&2), 244-262.
SWBD. 2005. Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Water Body Data set. http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/index.html. (accessed June, 2006)
Strabala, K. 2004. MODIS cloud mask user's guide. Retrieved Dec. 1, 2004 from http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/modis1/pdf/CMUSERSGUIDE.PDF.
Vermote, E., El Saleous, N., and Justice, C., 2002. Atmospheric correction of MODIS data in the visible to middle infrared: first results, Remote Sensing of Environment, 83(1&2), 97-111.
Wan, Z., Zhang, Y., Zhang, Q., and Li, Z. 2002. Validation of the land-surface temperature products retrieved from Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data, Remote Sensing of Environment, 83(1&2), 163-180.
NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Active Awards Represented by this Poster: