HR: 0800h
AN: H31G-0745    [Abstracts]
TI: Ecohydrological Fingerprinting of Land-Falling Hurricanes in the Southeastern United States - Eloise as a Prototype
AU: * Barros, A P
EM: barros@duke.edu
AF: Pratt School of Engineering, Dept. of Civil and Env. Engineering, Duke University Box 90287/CEE, Durham, NC 27708, United States
AU: Brun, J
EM: julien.brun@duke.edu
AF: Pratt School of Engineering, Dept. of Civil and Env. Engineering, Duke University Box 90287/CEE, Durham, NC 27708, United States
AU: Jackson, R B
EM: jackson@duke.edu
AF: Nicholas School of the Environment and Center on Global Change, Duke University Box 90658, Durham, NC 27708, United States
AB: Hurricanes and tropical storms (collectively known as tropical cyclones, hereafter referred to as TCs) are regular events of varying magnitude (category dependent) and moderate frequency (years^-1) that provide a significant influx of freshwater resources to surface and subsurface reservoirs in the warm season. Beyond the popular association with disasters, hurricanes and tropical storms with varying degrees of intensity, structural organization, and terrestrial tracks are an essential element of the hydroclimatic regime of vast regions of the planet, including the Asian Monsoon Region, the Caribbean, and, of particular interest to our project, the eastern and southern United States. Whereas a historical data base of hurricane and tropical cyclone tracks already exists [http://maps.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/index.htm], systematic forensic studies to inventory and quantify landform and land-use (LU) and land-cover (LC) changes along the path of land-falling storms have yet to be conducted but for isolated place-based assessments. The objective of our research is to develop a framework to systematize a comprehensive analysis of satellite data both historical and more recent, including Landsat (TM and ETM+), AVHRR, SSMI, ASTER, SPOT and MODIS leading to the characterization of continental-scale changes of terrestrial land-use and land-cover along the tracks of land-falling hurricanes and tropical cyclones. We are interested in detecting changes caused by individual storms, and in characterizing the time-rates and strategies of landscape recovery toward ecohydrological fingerprinting of LULC change. To this end, we present first results for the historical analysis of Hurricane Eloise (13-24 September, 1975), which caused 76 deaths and $2.1 billion in damage. We build on these results to develop a framework for assessing the integrated impact of extreme events on the regional water cycle.
DE: 1632 Land cover change
DE: 1640 Remote sensing (1855)
DE: 1817 Extreme events
DE: 1836 Hydrological cycles and budgets (1218, 1655)
DE: 1872 Time series analysis (3270, 4277, 4475)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting