An Inundated Wetlands Earth System Data Record: Global Monitoring of Wetland Extent and Dynamics

Kyle McDonald, The City College of New York, kmcdonald2@ccny.cuny.edu (Presenter)
Bruce Chapman, JPL, bruce.d.chapman@nasa.gov
Ronny Schroeder, The City College of New York, ronny.schroder@gmail.com
Marzi Azarderakhsh, The City College of New York, mazarderakhsh@ccny.cuny.edu
Erika Podest, JPL, erika.podest@nasa.gov
Mahta Moghaddam, USC, mahta@usc.edu
Jane Whitcomb, USC, whitcomb@sbcglobal.net
Laura L. Hess, UCSB, lola@icess.ucsb.edu
John S Kimball, University of Montana, johnk@ntsg.umt.edu

Wetlands cover less than 5% of Earth’s ice-free land surface but exert major impacts on global biogeochemistry, hydrology, and biological diversity. Despite the importance of these environments in the global cycling of carbon and water, there is a scarcity of suitable regional-to-global remote-sensing data for characterizing their distribution and dynamics. We are assembling a global-scale Earth System Data Record (ESDR) of natural Inundated Wetlands to facilitate investigations on their role in climate, biogeochemistry, hydrology, and biodiversity. The ESDR comprises (1) Fine-resolution (100 meter) maps, delineating wetland extent, vegetation type, and seasonal inundation dynamics for regional to continental-scale areas covering crucial wetland regions, and (2) global coarse-resolution (~25 km), multi-temporal mappings of inundated area fraction (Fw) across multiple years. The fine-scale ESDR component is constructed from L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. The global maps of inundated area fraction are obtained by combining coarse-resolution (~25 km) remote sensing observations from passive and active microwave instruments.

We present details of ESDR development and assembly including details of remote sensing data collections, algorithm application, and data set distribution. The status of ESDR assembly including data processing and wetland classification is presented. We discuss the details of data system development and the unique features addressed in data system implementation. We introduce efforts for conducting systematic error assessments for quantifying ESDR accuracy. This ESDR will provide the first high-resolution, accurate, consistent and comprehensive global-scale data set of wetland inundation and vegetation, including continental-scale multi-temporal and multi-year monthly inundation dynamics at varying scales.

This work was carried out in part within the framework of the ALOS Kyoto & Carbon Initiative. PALSAR data were provided by JAXA/EORC and the Alaska Satellite Facility. Portions of this work were conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under contract to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Poster Session 1-A   (Tue 11:00 AM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Related Activity or Previously Funded TE Activity

Poster Location ID: 3