Necessity to adapt land use and land cover classification systems to readily accept radar data

A hierarchial, four level, standardized system for classifying land use/land cover primarily from remote-sensor data (USGS system) is described. The USGS system was developed for nonmicrowave imaging sensors such as camera systems and line scanners. The USGS system is not compatible with the land use/land cover classifications at different levels that can be made from radar imagery, and particularly from synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) imagery. The use of radar imagery for classifying land use/land cover at different levels is discussed, and a possible revision of the USGS system to more readily accept land use/land cover classifications from radar imagery is proposed

Downscaling landsat land surface temperature over the urban area of Florence

A new downscaling algorithm for land surface temperature (LST) images retrieved from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) was developed over the city of Florence and the results assessed against a high-resolution aerial image. The Landsat TM thermal band has a spatial resolution of 120 m, resampled at 30 m by the US Geological Survey (USGS) agency, whilst the airborne ground spatial resolution was 1 m. Substantial differences between Landsat USGS and airborne thermal data were observed on a 30 m grid: therefore a new statistical downscaling method at 30 m was developed. The overall root mean square error with respect to aircraft data improved from 3.3 °C (USGS) to 3.0 °C with the new method, that also showed better results with respect to other regressive downscaling techniques frequently used in literature. Such improvements can be ascribed to the selection of independent variables capable of representing the heterogeneous urban landscape

River Bed Response to Channel Width Variation: Theory and Experiments (HES 49)

Illinois Water Resources Center (USGS Project 04 Contract 14-08-0004-G2017unpublishednot peer reviewe

Preliminary site report for the 2005 ICDP-USGS deep corehole in the Chesapeake Bay impact crater

First report for the ICDP-USGS 1.7-km-deep corehole drilled into the central part of the Chesapeake Bay impact crater during 2005

Microvax-based data management and reduction system for the regional planetary image facilities

Presented is a progress report for the Regional Planetary Image Facilities (RPIF) prototype image data management and reduction system being jointly implemented by Washington University and the USGS, Flagstaff. The system will consist of a MicroVAX with a high capacity (approx 300 megabyte) disk drive, a compact disk player, an image display buffer, a videodisk player, USGS image processing software, and SYSTEM 1032 - a commercial relational database management package. The USGS, Flagstaff, will transfer their image processing software including radiometric and geometric calibration routines, to the MicroVAX environment. Washington University will have primary responsibility for developing the database management aspects of the system and for integrating the various aspects into a working system

Assessing Marsh response from sea-level rise applying local site conditions: Humboldt Bay Wetlands

The broad goal of our research was to use site-specific data to develop local and regionally applicable models that inform management of tidal wetlands within Humboldt Bay. Our overarching question was: how vulnerable are Humboldt Bay tidal marshes to different rates of SLR. This question was addressed with three broad objectives: (1) Assess past patterns in sedimentation to inform current SLR projections. This was accomplished by radioisotope dating of stratigraphic cores. (2) Measure baseline conditions in the tidal marshes. We characterized physical and biological properties at all study sites including topography, accretion rates, emergent vegetation, water level, salinity, and water temperature. These results are summarized in the main document, (3) Model tidal marsh elevation and habitat change under three SLR scenarios. We evaluated the degree of marsh habitat change under low, mid, and high SLR scenarios with the WARMER model (Swanson et al., 2014) for all study sites

Assessing coastal manager science needs and disseminating science results for planning

To facilitate communication and outreach of sea-level tidal marsh modeling results, we convened managers, biologists, Tribes, and other important decision makers and partners and hosted in-person workshops with stakeholders in six Pacific coast estuaries. Our objectives were: (1) disseminate site-specific baseline data and modeling results, reveal coast-wide trends, and identify data gaps; (2) identify how local climate science results may be incorporated into habitat conservation, planning, and adaptation strategies; and (3) develop an understanding of coastal climate change science needs to inform the California and North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperatives

USGS Crews Measure Record Flooding in Central Texas

This newsletter describes a specific flooding event that affected a large part of San Antonio and Austin, including Waller Creek.Waller Creek Working Grou

Water-Data Report 2008

This data sheet includes daily mean discharge data from Waller Creek at Koenig Lane from July 2007 to September 2008.Surface water records for USGS station at Waller Creek and Koenig LaneWaller Creek Working Grou

Evaluating river cross section geometry for a hydraulic river routing model : Guadalupe and San Antonio river basins

textA new methodology is presented to construct reliable river channel cross section approximations. These approximations are based on the idea of downstream hydraulic geometry as well as supported by the information collected by the USGS streamflow measurement stations across the study area. A hydraulic river routing model (SPRNT) is run with the newly constructed cross section approximations. Initial conditions for the simulation are estimated based on the steady state solution for the model. Boundary conditions or lateral inflows for the river network are estimated based on the outputs of a Land Surface model: Noah, which provides surface and sub-surface runoff for every catchment area in the San Antonio and Guadalupe river basins. Simulations are compared with observed measurements from the USGS stations.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin