Potential for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Applications for Identifying Groundwater‐Surface Water Exchange in a Meandering River Reach

The exchange of groundwater and surface water (GW‐SW), including dissolved constituents and energy, represents a critical yet challenging characterization problem for hydrogeologists and stream ecologists. Here we describe the use of a suite of high spatial resolution remote sensing techniques, coll...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2017-12, Vol.44 (23), p.11,868-11,877
Main Authors: Pai, H., Malenda, H. F., Briggs, M. A., Singha, K., González‐Pinzón, R., Gooseff, M. N., Tyler, S. W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aircraft
Banks (topography)
Data processing
Ecologists
Exchanging
Groundwater
GW‐SW exchange
Hydraulic conductivity
Imagery
Meandering
Neck
Normalized difference vegetative index
Permeability coefficient
Remote sensing
Remote sensing techniques
Resolution
River beds
River meanders
Riverbeds
Rivers
Satellite imagery
Satellites
Sensing techniques
Slope
Spatial discrimination
Spatial resolution
Surface water
Surface-groundwater relations
Temperature data
Topography
Topography (geology)
unmanned aerial systems
Unmanned aerial vehicles
Unmanned aircraft
Vegetation
Vegetation index
Water exchange
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Summary:The exchange of groundwater and surface water (GW‐SW), including dissolved constituents and energy, represents a critical yet challenging characterization problem for hydrogeologists and stream ecologists. Here we describe the use of a suite of high spatial resolution remote sensing techniques, collected using a small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS), to provide novel and complementary data to analyze GW‐SW exchange. sUAS provided centimeter‐scale resolution topography and water surface elevations, which are often drivers of exchange along the river corridor. Additionally, sUAS‐based vegetation imagery, vegetation‐top elevation, and normalized difference vegetation index mapping indicated GW‐SW exchange patterns that are difficult to characterize from the land surface and may not be resolved from coarser satellite‐based imagery. We combined these data with estimates of sediment hydraulic conductivity to provide a direct estimate of GW “shortcutting” through meander necks, which was corroborated by temperature data at the riverbed interface. Key Points High‐resolution imagery can be obtained from small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) for riparian, groundwater‐surface water exchange analysis sUAS‐based topographic mapping provides efficient and high‐resolution surface water elevation profiling and breaks in slope Hydraulic conductivity and temperature profiling can be used to ground‐truth exchange patterns identified with sUAS imagery
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1002/2017GL075836