Assessing Global Surface Water Inundation Dynamics Using Combined Satellite Information from SMAP, AMSR2 and Landsat

A method to assess global land surface water (fw) inundation dynamics was developed by exploiting the enhanced fw sensitivity of L-band (1.4 GHz) passive microwave observations from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission. The L-band fw (fw(sub LBand)) retrievals were derived using SMAP H-polarization brightness temperature (Tb) observations and predefined L-band reference microwave emissivities for water and land endmembers. Potential soil moisture and vegetation contributions to the microwave signal were represented from overlapping higher frequency (Tb) observations from AMSR2. The resulting (fw(sub LBand)) global record has high temporal sampling (1-3 days) and 36-km spatial resolution. The (fw(sub LBand)) annual averages corresponded favourably (R=0.84, p<0.001) with a 250-m resolution static global water map (MOD44W) aggregated at the same spatial scale, while capturing significant inundation variations worldwide. The monthly (fw(sub LBand)) averages also showed seasonal inundation changes consistent with river discharge records within six major US river basins. An uncertainty analysis indicated generally reliable (fw(sub LBand)) performance for major land cover areas and under low to moderate vegetation cover, but with lower accuracy for detecting water bodies covered by dense vegetation. Finer resolution (30-m) (fw(sub LBand)) results were obtained for three sub-regions in North America using an empirical downscaling approach and ancillary global Water Occurrence Dataset (WOD) derived from the historical Landsat record. The resulting 30-m (fw(sub LBand)) retrievals showed favourable spatial accuracy for water (70.71%) and land (98.99%) classifications and seasonal wet and dry periods when compared to independent water maps derived from Landsat-8 imagery. The new (fw(sub LBand)) algorithms and continuing SMAP and AMSR2 operations provide for near real-time, multi-scale monitoring of global surface water inundation dynamics and potential flood risk

A global network for operational flood risk reduction

Every year riverine flooding affects millions of people in developing countries, due to the large population exposure in the floodplains and the lack of adequate flood protection measures. Preparedness and monitoring are effective ways to reduce flood risk. State-of-the-art technologies relying on satellite remote sensing as well as numerical hydrological and weather predictions can detect and monitor severe flood events at a global scale. This paper describes the emerging role of the Global Flood Partnership (GFP), a global network of scientists, users, private and public organizations active in global flood risk management. Currently, a number of GFP member institutes regularly share results from their experimental products, developed to predict and monitor where and when flooding is taking place in near real-time. GFP flood products have already been used on several occasions by national environmental agencies and humanitarian organizations to support emergency operations and to reduce the overall socio-economic impacts of disasters. This paper describes a range of global flood products developed by GFP partners, and how these provide complementary information to support and improve current global flood risk management for large scale catastrophes. We also discuss existing challenges and ways forward to turn current experimental products into an integrated flood risk management platform to improve rapid access to flood information and increase resilience to flood events at global scale

Field Data Report for the First Radiobrightness Energy Balance Experiment (REBEX-1), October 1992-April 1993, Sioux Falls, South Dakota

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/21065/2/rl0913.0001.001.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/21065/1/rl0913.0001.001.tx

REBEX-1

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/4983/5/bac7068.0001.001.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/4983/4/bac7068.0001.001.tx

Microwave Radiometry of Snow-Covered Grasslands for Estimation of Land-Atmosphere Energy and Moisture Fluxes

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/21071/2/rl0926.0001.001.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/21071/1/rl0926.0001.001.tx

Real Time Monitoring of Flooding from Microwave Satellite Observations

In this report, we review the progress to date including results from data analyses and present a schedule of milestones for the remainder of the project. We discuss the processing of flood extent data and SSM/I brightness temperature data for the 1993 Midwest Flood. We present preliminary results from the derivation of open water fraction from brightness temperatures

Michigan Earth Grid: Desription, Tegistration Method for SSM/I Data, and Derivation Map Projections

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/21438/2/rl2415.0001.001.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/21438/1/rl2415.0001.001.tx

Discrepancies between MODIS and ISCCP land surface temperature products analyzed with microwave measurements

International audienceThis paper compares land surface temperature (LST) products from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP). With both sources, the LST data are derived from infrared measurements. For ISCCP, LST is a secondary product in support of the primary cloud analyses, but the LST data have been used for several other purposes. The MODIS measurements from the Aqua spacecraft are taken at about 01:30 and 13:30 local time, and the ISCCP three-hourly data, based on several geostationary and polar orbiting satellites, were interpolated to the MODIS measurement times. For July 2003 monthly averages over all clear-sky locations, the ISCCP-MODIS differences were +5.0 K and +2.5 K for day and night, respectively, and there were areas with differences as large as 25 K. The day-night differences were as much as &tilde;10 K higher for ISCCP than for MODIS. The MODIS measurements were more consistent with independent microwave measurements from AMSR-E, by several measures, with respect to day-night differences and day-to-day variations

Linking GCM hydrologic parameters to the radiobrightness of northern prairie and arctic tundra

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/4794/5/bac1485.0001.001.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/4794/4/bac1485.0001.001.tx