The role of satellite remote sensing in climate change studies

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 875-883 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Yang ◽  
Peng Gong ◽  
Rong Fu ◽  
Minghua Zhang ◽  
Jingming Chen ◽  
...  
2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Yang ◽  
Peng Gong ◽  
Rong Fu ◽  
Minghua Zhang ◽  
Jingming Chen ◽  
...  

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. 1001-1001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Yang ◽  
Peng Gong ◽  
Rong Fu ◽  
Minghua Zhang ◽  
Jingming Chen ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilham Ali ◽  
Jay Famiglietti ◽  
Jonathan McLelland

Water stress in both surface and groundwater supplies is an increasing environmental and sustainable management issue. According to the UN Environment Program, at current depletion rates almost half of the world's population will suffer severe water stress by 2030. This is further exacerbated by climate change effects which are altering the hydrologic cycle. Understanding climate change implications is critical to planning for water management scenarios as situations such as rising sea levels, increasing severity of storms, prolonged drought in many regions, ocean acidification, and flooding due to snowmelt and heavy precipitation continue. Today, major efforts towards equitable water management and governance are needed. This study adopts the broad, holistic lenses of sustainable development and water diplomacy, acknowledging both the complex and transboundary nature of water issues, to assess the benefits of a “science to policy” approach in water governance. Such negotiations and frameworks are predicated on the availability of timely and uniform data to bolster water management plans, which can be provided by earth-observing satellite missions. In recent decades, significant advances in satellite remote sensing technology have provided unprecedented data of the Earth’s water systems, including information on changes in groundwater storage, mass loss of snow caps, evaporation of surface water reservoirs, and variations in precipitation patterns. In this study, specific remote sensing missions are surveyed (i.e. NASA LANDSAT, GRACE, SMAP, CYGNSS, and SWOT) to understand the breadth of data available for water uses and the implications of these advances for water management. Results indicate historical precedent where remote sensing data and technologies have been successfully integrated to achieve more sustainable water management policy and law, such as in the passage of the California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014. In addition, many opportunities exist in current transboundary and interstate water conflicts (for example, the Nile Basin and the Tri-State Water Wars between Alabama, Georgia, and Florida) to integrate satellite-remote-sensed water data as a means of “joint-fact finding” and basis for further negotiations. The authors argue that expansion of access to satellite remote sensing data of water for the general public, stakeholders, and policy makers would have a significant impact on the development of science-oriented water governance measures and increase awareness of water issues by significant amounts. Barriers to entry exist in accessing many satellite datasets because of prerequisite knowledge and expertise in the domain. More user-friendly platforms need to be developed in order to maximize the utility of present satellite data. Furthermore, sustainable co-operations should be formed to employ satellite remote sensing data on a regional scale to preempt problems in water supply, quantity, and quality.


2018 ◽  
Vol 619-620 ◽  
pp. 249-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Murray ◽  
David A. Keith ◽  
Lucie M. Bland ◽  
Renata Ferrari ◽  
Mitchell B. Lyons ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1951 ◽  
Author(s):  
Til Prasad Pangali Sharma ◽  
Jiahua Zhang ◽  
Narendra Raj Khanal ◽  
Foyez Ahmed Prodhan ◽  
Basanta Paudel ◽  
...  

The Himalayan region, a major source of fresh water, is recognized as a water tower of the world. Many perennial rivers originate from Nepal Himalaya, located in the central part of the Himalayan region. Snowmelt water is essential freshwater for living, whereas it poses flood disaster potential, which is a major challenge for sustainable development. Climate change also largely affects snowmelt hydrology. Therefore, river discharge measurement requires crucial attention in the face of climate change, particularly in the Himalayan region. The snowmelt runoff model (SRM) is a frequently used method to measure river discharge in snow-fed mountain river basins. This study attempts to investigate snowmelt contribution in the overall discharge of the Budhi Gandaki River Basin (BGRB) using satellite remote sensing data products through the application of the SRM model. The model outputs were validated based on station measured river discharge data. The results show that SRM performed well in the study basin with a coefficient of determination (R2) >0.880. Moreover, this study found that the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) snow cover data and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) meteorological datasets are highly applicable to the SRM in the Himalayan region. The study also shows that snow days have slightly decreased in the last three years, hence snowmelt contribution in overall discharge has decreased slightly in the study area. Finally, this study concludes that MOD10A2 and ECMWF precipitation and two-meter temperature products are highly applicable to measure snowmelt and associated discharge through SRM in the BGRB. Moreover, it also helps with proper freshwater planning, efficient use of winter water flow, and mitigating and preventive measures for the flood disaster.


2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-63
Author(s):  
Ebenezer Yemi Ogunbadewa

Climatic variability affects both seasonal phenological cycles of vegetation and monthly distribution of rainfall in the south western Nigeria. Variations in vegetation biophysical parameters have been known to be a good indicator of climate variability; hence they are used as key inputs into climate change models. However, understanding the response of vegetation to the influence of climate at both temporal and spatial scales have been a major challenge. This is because most climatic data available are derived from ground-based instruments, which are mainly point measurements and are characterized by sparse network of meteorological stations that lacks the spatial coverage required for climate change investigation. Satellite remote sensing instruments can provide a suitable alternative of time-reliable datasets in a more consistent manner at both temporal and spatial scales. The aim of this study is to test the suitability of one year time series datasets obtained from satellite sensor and meteorological stations as a starting point for the development of a climate change model that can be exploited in planning adaptation strategies. Taking into consideration that rainfall is the most variable element of climate in the study area, rainfall data acquired from five meteorological stations for the year 2006 were correlated with changes in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)/Terra satellite sensor for the same period using a linear regression equation. The results shows that rainfall–NDVI relationship was stronger along the seasonal track with R2 ranging from 0.74 to 0.94, indicating that NDVI seasonal variations can be used as a surrogate data source for monitoring climate change for short and long term scales ranging from regional to global magnitude especially in areas where data availability from ground-based measurements are unreliable.


2011 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 687-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sei-Ichi Saitoh ◽  
Robinson Mugo ◽  
I Nyoman Radiarta ◽  
Shinsuke Asaga ◽  
Fumihiro Takahashi ◽  
...  

Abstract Saitoh, S-I., Mugo, R., Radiarta, I N., Asaga, S., Takahashi, F., Hirawake, T., Ishikawa, Y., Awaji, T., In, T., and Shima, S. 2011. Some operational uses of satellite remote sensing and marine GIS for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 687–695. An overview of satellite remote-sensing (SRS) operational applications in fisheries is presented, and includes two case studies illustrating the societal benefits of SRS. The first describes the use of satellite-based vessel monitoring systems (VMS) and SRS data in a skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) fishery, including a simple algorithm for determining fishing activity from vessel speed. The second case study illustrates the application of remotely sensed information in determining the impact of climate change on site suitability for scallop (Mizuhopecten yessoensis) aquaculture. Global warming simulated according to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios had a significant impact on sites with the greatest suitability for scallop aquaculture. Some challenges in the field of fisheries information systems are also discussed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 454-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miaogen Shen ◽  
Shilong Piao ◽  
Tsechoe Dorji ◽  
Qiang Liu ◽  
Nan Cong ◽  
...  

Abstract Phenology studies the cycle of events in nature that are initiated and driven by an annually recurring environment. Plant phenology is expected to be one of the most sensitive and easily observable natural indicators of climate change. On the Tibetan Plateau (TP), an accelerated warming since the mid-1980s has resulted in significant environmental changes. These new conditions are accompanied by phenological changes that are characterized by considerable spatiotemporal heterogeneity. Satellite remote sensing observed widespread advance in the start of the plant growing season across the plateau during the 1980s and 1990s but substantial delay over 2000–2011 in the southwest although it continued to advance in the northeast regions of the TP. Both observational studies and controlled experiments have revealed, to some extent, the positive role of higher preseason temperature and even more precipitation in advancing the leaf onset and first flowering date of the TP. However, a number of rarely visited research issues that are essential for understanding the role of phenology in ecosystem responses and feedback processes to climate change remain to be solved. Our review recommends that addressing the following questions should be a high priority. How did other phenological events change, such as flowering and fruiting phenology? What are the influences from environmental changes other than temperature and precipitation, including human activities such as grazing? What are the genetic and physiological bases of plants phenological responses? How does phenological change influence ecosystem structure and function at different scales and feedback to the climate system? Investigating these research questions requires, first of all, new data of the associated environmental variables, and consistent and reliable phenological observation using different methodologies (i.e. in situ observations and remote sensing).


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