HR: 1330h
AN: G23A-04    [Abstracts]
TI: The Everglades wetlands as a laboratory for testing and calibrating space-geodetic hydrological technologies
AU: * Wdowinski, S
EM: shimonw@rsmas.miami.edu
AF: MGG, RSMAS, University of Miami, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149-1098 United States
AU: Amelung, F
EM: famelung@rsmas.miami.edu
AF: MGG, RSMAS, University of Miami, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149-1098 United States
AU: Dixon, T
EM: tdixon@rsmas.miami.edu
AF: MGG, RSMAS, University of Miami, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149-1098 United States
AU: Kim, S
EM: skim@rsmas.miami.edu
AF: MGG, RSMAS, University of Miami, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149-1098 United States
AU: Osmanoglu, B
EM: batuhan.osmanoglu@gmail.com
AF: Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Istanbul, 80600 Turkey
AU: Kartal, M
EM: mkartal@ehb.itu.edu.tr
AF: Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Istanbul, 80600 Turkey
AU: Harding, D J
EM: David.J.Harding@nasa.gov
AF: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Laboratory for Planetary Geodynamics, Mail Code 698, Greenbelt, MD 20771-0001 United States
AB: The Everglades in south Florida is a unique wetland environment consisting of a very wide, shallow and slow sheetflow that drains Lake Okeechobee southwards to the Gulf of Mexico. Anthropogenic changes in the past 50 years have disrupted natural water flow and severely impacted the regional ecosystem. Currently, the northern section of the Everglades' flow is controlled by a series of structures (e.g., levies, gates) and serves mainly as water reservoir. In the southern section of the Everglades the original wetland sheetflow has been preserved, although the water supply for the flow is controlled by the local water authority. Everglades' stage (water level) is currently monitored by probably the densest stage network in the world, consisting of more than 200 stations, spaced 5-10 km from one another. The Everglades' very wide flow combined with the dense stage network provides an almost perfect large-scale natural and controlled laboratory for testing space-geodetic hydrological technologies. We present here results of three space-geodetic technologies that have been used to measure water levels and water level changes in the Everglades. Two of the methods, Radar Altimetry and Laser Altimetry, use along-track waveform observations to detect surface changes along several roughly oriented N-S profiles. Due to the high nadir scatter from the flat water surface, the Everglades waveforms are saturated and, as a result, the measurements are skewed. We are currently trying to resolve the saturation issue by planning off-nadir measurement by ICESAT and developing a Radar Altimetry simulator for the ENVISAT RA-2 land and wetland observations. The third method, InSAR, produce surprisingly good results with both L- and C-band observations, as long as the acquisition time span is short (< 100 days). The InSAR observations provide high spatial resolution map of water level changes in both the controlled and natural flow environments.
DE: 1243 Space geodetic surveys
DE: 1294 Instruments and techniques
DE: 1829 Groundwater hydrology
DE: 1860 Runoff and streamflow
DE: 1890 Wetlands
SC: Geodesy [G]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly