HR: 0830h
AN: B31C-0320    [PDF]
TI: Mapping Wetlands of the North American Boreal Zone from Satellite Radar Imagery
AU: * Moghaddam, M
EM: mmoghadd@eecs.umich.edu
AF: University of Michigan, EECS, 1301 Beal Avenue room 3238, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 United States
AU: McDonald, K
EM: kyle.mcdonald@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AU: Podest, E
EM: Erika.podest@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AB: The accurate assessment of spatial and temporal distributions of wetlands can have a large impact in improving the estimates of the global net carbon exchange. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors are well suited to monitoring wetlands because of their ability to detect various combinations of standing water and vegetation conditions. They also penetrate cloud cover and do not require solar illumination, allowing the collection of frequent seasonal data. The recent availability of large-scale satellite SAR mosaics is making it possible to generate baseline wetlands map of the north American boreal zone, where it is hypothesized to exist a substantial carbon sink, and 15-20 percent of the land surface is comprised of wetlands. The present work utilizes the summer and winter JERS-1 mosaics of the region as well as several large-scale coverages of ERS-2 for mapping the north America boreal wetlands. As an intermediate product, an open water map of the area is also being generated, derived from 100-meter resolution JERS-1 SAR mosaic products. We present a large-scale wetlands map covering large parts of Alaska and Canada, generated using a classification algorithm applied to coregistered JERS-1 (L-band HH polarizations) and ERS-2 (C-band VV polarization) SAR mosaics. The former exists for almost the entire area of Alaska and Canada, whereas currently we have access to the latter only for Alaska and Western Canada. The classification method is based on a rule-based decision-tree algorithm, and divides the landscape into the following classes: open water (possibly with sparse emergent vegetation), flooded woody vegetation (e.g., forests), flooded herbaceous vegetation, nonflooded woody vegetation, nonflooded herbaceous vegetation, and nonflooded-nonvegetated. The five standard Canadian wetlands classes of fens, bogs, swamps, marshes, and open water can be mapped into one or more of our vegetation-based wetlands classes. Several local-scale products have been validated using specific study sites. More extensive validations are in-progress or planned in cooperation with various wetlands research groups. This work was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, and at The University of Michigan under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
DE: 1615 Biogeochemical processes (4805)
DE: 1806 Chemistry of fresh water
DE: 1823 Frozen ground
DE: 1845 Limnology
DE: 1890 Wetlands
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting