Project: Land Characteristics from Remote Sensing

Web Site: http://sofia.usgs.gov

Location: Central Everglades and the Southwest Coast / Big Cypress; Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe Counties

Principal Investigator: John W. Jones, jwjones@usgs.gov, 703.648.5543

Project Personnel: Nancy Rybicki, nrybicki@usgs.gov, 703.648.5728; Greg Desmond, gdesmond@usgs.gov, 703.648.4728; George Lemeshewsky, glemeshe@usgs.gov, 703.648.4689; Jeane-Claude Thomas, jcthomas@usgs.gov, 703.648.6076

Other Supporting Organizations: Everglades National Park

Associated Projects: Vegetation Resistance to Flow: (Jenter and Schaffranek); Evapotranspiration: (German); Aquatic Cycling of Mercury in the Everglades: (Krabbenhoft)

Overview & Status: To accurately simulate surface hydrology and other surface processes in South Florida, description of vegetation characteristics and their variation through space and time are important in understanding the role vegetation plays in removal of surface water, resistance to surface water flow, and water quality. The objective of this research is to develop and apply innovative remote sensing and geographic information system techniques to map the distribution of vegetation, vegetation characteristics, and related hydrologic variables such as evapotranspiration through space and over time. Fieldwork for this effort has included the collection of high-resolution reflectance spectra for a great number of vegetation and land surfaces. Also, vegetation biomass and other structural characteristics have been sampled at intensive field study sites. Along with other ground data such as water level, elevation, and land cover type, these data are being used to test the efficacy of data fields and vegetation maps derived from the remotely sensed data. Data from numerous airborne and satellite imaging systems have been georeferenced and pre-processed to facilitate data fusion and analysis. Databases of different temporal and spatial resolutions (depending on extent) that depict changes in vegetation amount and vigor (through vegetation indexes) have been developed for small areas like the Everglades Nutrient Removal project area and the entire South Florida region. A vegetation map of the Southern Inland Coastal System (SICS) model study area has been developed for the application of spatially distributed fields of vegetation flow resistance. A similar map is currently being produced for the Tides and Inflows to Mangroves of the Everglades (TIME) study area. Data from several different remote-sensing systems and in situ data collections have been fused for the development of other map products to include vegetation density, surface reflectance, and inundated areas, as well as the development of visually enhanced satellite image maps. Finally, spatial analysis of derived variables has been undertaken to address issues of scale important in aggregation for hydrodynamic modeling.

Needs & Products: The project supports the restoration and resource management efforts by providing critical information for field sampling design, hydrologic and ecological model parameterization, and land surface change monitoring. For example, project georeferenced and interpreted imagery is being used in the siting of additional point sampling efforts for meteorological data collection.

Application to Everglades Restoration: Project outputs have improved hydrodynamic model results. Water resources and land management decisions will rely heavily on the output of the developed simulation models.