scholarly journals NASA’s MODIS/VIIRS Global Water Reservoir Product Suite from Moderate Resolution Remote Sensing Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 565
Author(s):  
Yao Li ◽  
Gang Zhao ◽  
Deep Shah ◽  
Maosheng Zhao ◽  
Sudipta Sarkar ◽  
...  

Global reservoir information can not only benefit local water management but can also improve our understanding of the hydrological cycle. This information includes water area, elevation, and storage; evaporation rate and volume values; and other characteristics. However, operational wall-to-wall reservoir storage and evaporation monitoring information is lacking on a global scale. Here we introduce NASA’s new MODIS/VIIRS Global Water Reservoir product suite based on moderate resolution remote sensing data—the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). This product consists of 8-day (MxD28C2 and VNP28C2) and monthly (MxD28C3 and VNP28C3) measurements for 164 large reservoirs (MxD stands for the product from both Terra (MOD) or Aqua (MYD) satellites). The 8-day product provides area, elevation, and storage values, which were generated by first extracting water areas from surface reflectance data and then applying the area estimations to the pre-established Area–Elevation (A–E) relationships. These values were then further aggregated to monthly, with the evaporation rate and volume information added. The evaporation rate and volume values were calculated after the Lake Temperature and Evaporation Model (LTEM) using MODIS/VIIRS land surface temperature product and meteorological data from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS). Validation results show that the 250 m area classifications from MODIS agree well with the high-resolution classifications from Landsat (R2 = 0.99). Validation of elevation and storage products for twelve Indian reservoirs show good agreement in terms of R2 values (0.71–0.96 for elevation, and 0.79–0.96 for storage) and normalized root-mean-square error (NRMSE) values (5.08–19.34% for elevation, and 6.39–18.77% for storage). The evaporation rate results for two reservoirs (Lake Nasser and Lake Mead) agree well with in situ measurements (R2 values of 0.61 and 0.66, and NRMSE values of 16.25% and 21.76%). Furthermore, preliminary results from the VIIRS reservoir product have shown good consistency with the MODIS based product, confirming the continuity of this 20-year product suite. This new global water reservoir product suite can provide valuable information with regard to water-sources-related studies, applications, management, and hydrological modeling and change analysis such as drought monitoring.

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 507-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Karimi ◽  
W. G. M. Bastiaanssen

Abstract. The scarcity of water encourages scientists to develop new analytical tools to enhance water resource management. Water accounting and distributed hydrological models are examples of such tools. Water accounting needs accurate input data for adequate descriptions of water distribution and water depletion in river basins. Ground-based observatories are decreasing, and not generally accessible. Remote sensing data is a suitable alternative to measure the required input variables. This paper reviews the reliability of remote sensing algorithms to accurately determine the spatial distribution of actual evapotranspiration, rainfall and land use. For our validation we used only those papers that covered study periods of seasonal to annual cycles because the accumulated water balance is the primary concern. Review papers covering shorter periods only (days, weeks) were not included in our review. Our review shows that by using remote sensing, the absolute values of evapotranspiration can be estimated with an overall accuracy of 95% (SD 5%) and rainfall with an overall absolute accuracy of 82% (SD 15%). Land use can be identified with an overall accuracy of 85% (SD 7%). Hence, more scientific work is needed to improve the spatial mapping of rainfall and land use using multiple space-borne sensors. While not always perfect at all spatial and temporal scales, seasonally accumulated actual evapotranspiration maps can be used with confidence in water accounting and hydrological modeling.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan C.L. Howey ◽  
Michael Palace ◽  
Crystal H. McMichael ◽  
Bobby Braswell

AbstractRemote sensing applications are increasingly common in archaeology but they often focus on high resolution imagery and direct archaeological site detection. Moderate spatial resolution remote sensing instruments, which have (near) daily repeat intervals, but contain less detailed spectral and spatial information, have been employed much less frequently in archaeology. However, moderate remote sensing data offer distinct advantages for archaeological research as they can be used to relate archaeological, ecological, and climactic data at vast spatial scales. To show this potential, we use moderate remote sensing data to examine the impact of landscape heterogeneity on the spread of indigenous maize horticulture in the northern Great Lakes during Late Precontact (ca. AD 1200-1600). Analyzing National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery, we identify differences in freeze/thaw cycles across inland lakes in Michigan, showing that some large inland lakes produce a microclimatic amelioration, possibly extending the growing season for prehistoric maize cultivation. Conducting geospatial analyses, we find that burial mounds and maize cultivation practices were associated preferentially with larger inland lakes with microclimates. We could not have found these dynamic interrelationships between microclimates, burial mounds, and maize cultivation if not for both the frequent temporal imaging and large spatial coverage provided by moderate resolution remote sensing imagery.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 6215-6271
Author(s):  
F. Silvestro ◽  
S. Gabellani ◽  
R. Rudari ◽  
F. Delogu ◽  
P. Laiolo ◽  
...  

Abstract. During the last decade the opportunity and usefulness of using remote sensing data in hydrology, hydrometeorology and geomorphology has become even more evident and clear. Satellite based products often provide the advantage of observing hydrologic variables in a distributed way while offering a different view that can help to understand and model the hydrological cycle. Moreover, remote sensing data are fundamental in scarce data environments. The use of satellite derived DTM, which are globally available (e.g. from SRTM as used in this work), have become standard practice in hydrologic model implementation, but other types of satellite derived data are still underutilized. In this work, Meteosat Second Generation Land Surface Temperature (LST) estimates and Surface Soil Moisture (SSM) available from EUMETSAT H-SAF are used to calibrate the Continuum hydrological model that computes such state variables in a prognostic mode. This work aims at proving that satellite observations dramatically reduce uncertainties in parameters calibration by reducing their equifinality. Two parameter estimation strategies are implemented and tested: a multi-objective approach that includes ground observations and one solely based on remotely sensed data. Two Italian catchments are used as the test bed to verify the model capability in reproducing long-term (multi-year) simulations.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronika Döpper ◽  
Tobias Gränzig ◽  
Michael Förster ◽  
Birgit Kleinschmit

<p>Soil moisture content (SMC) is of fundamental importance to many hydrological, biological, biochemical and atmospheric processes. Common soil moisture measurements range from local point measurements to global remote sensing-based SMC datasets. Nevertheless, they always compromise between temporal and spatial resolution. Thus, it is still challenging to quantify spatially and temporally distributed SMC at a regional scale which is extremely relevant for hydrological modeling or agricultural management. The innovative technology Cosmic-Ray Neutron Sensing (CRNS) shows significant potential to fill this gap by quantifying the present hydrogen pools within footprints larger than 0.1 ha.</p><p>Owing to the difference in scale between the ground resolution of satellites used to retrieve soil moisture and the common point scale of ground-based soil moisture instruments, the large footprint of the CRNS poses a high potential for the validation of SMC remote sensing products. When linking the CRNS measurements with remote sensing data, the vertical and horizontal characteristics of its footprint need to be considered.</p><p>To examine the influence of the CRNS footprint characteristics on the linkage of CRNS and remote sensing data, we couple CRNS measurements with high-resolution UAS-based thermal imagery acquired at two sites in Bavaria and Brandenburg (Germany) using a radiometrically calibrated FLIR Tau 2 336 (FLIR Systems, Inc., Wilsonville, OR, USA) with a focal length of 9 mm. Within this context, we evaluate the added value of applying a horizontal weighting function to the spatially distributed thermal data in comparison to an unweighted mean when statistically representing the corrected neutron counting rates.</p><p>The project is part of the DFG-funded research group Cosmic Sense, which aims to provide interdisciplinary new representative insights into hydrological changes at the land surface.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 556 ◽  
pp. 39-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Herman ◽  
A. Pouyan Nejadhashemi ◽  
Mohammad Abouali ◽  
Juan Sebastian Hernandez-Suarez ◽  
Fariborz Daneshvar ◽  
...  

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