Coastal California Water Resources II

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A turbidity algorithm was applied to visualize plume and estuary conditions in Landsat 8 OLI imagery taken on 01/23/2021 for the Russian River bar-built estuary, California. In areas of water, light orange indicates high turbidity and dark violet indicates low turbidity. Land is displayed with a true color band combination. Turbid waters can indicate poor water quality, as these conditions reduce the amount of sunlight available for photosynthesis in phytoplankton and algae that live in the water. As such, the visualization of turbidity informs conservation agencies on estuary conditions. Image created by Karina Alvarez, Rachel Darling, and Alexander Gunnerson. Keywords: turbidity, water

Utilizing NASA Earth Observations to Detect and Assess the Impacts of Estuarine Breach Events for Improved Coastal Wetland Monitoring and Management

Estuaries are dynamic environments that provide a host of vital ecosystem services. California’s Marine Life Protection Act protects such ecosystems by creating Marine Protected Areas. California has approximately 440,000 acres of estuarine habitats as well as 23 Estuarine Marine Protected Areas (EMPAs); thus, in situ data collection is often difficult due to time and resource constraints. This project used remote sensing to gather data that examined the health and dynamics of California EMPAs in order to supplement ground-based field measurements. Through the use of Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (MSI) and Sentinel-1 C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (C-SAR), this project assessed mouth state, inundation extent, turbidity, temperature, and tidal measurements for observable estuaries. The Normalized Water Difference Index from Sentinel-2 MSI captured estuary mouth state and inundation extent. Landsat 8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI detected differences in water quality metrics that correlated to changes in estuary mouth state (i.e., open or closed). The team’s California Estuary Assessment (CEA) tool in Google Earth Engine was successful in analyzing estuary mouth state, inundation, and water quality. It was most effective when breach events were larger than 10 meters in resolution, water surface was smooth, and imagery was unimpeded by algae or sun glint. The CEA tool will allow the partners, the Ocean Protection Council, Central Coast Wetlands Group, Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Davis (UCD), to better understand estuary dynamics and more effectively conduct in situ estuary monitoring.

Location
California - JPL
Term
Summer 2021
Partner(s)
Ocean Protection Council
Southern California Coastal Water Research Project
Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, Central Coast Wetlands Group
University of California Los Angeles, Institute of the Environment & Sustainability
University of California Davis, Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute
NASA Earth Observations
Landsat 8 OLI / TIRS
Sentinel-2 MSI
Sentinel-1 C-SAR
PlanetScope & RapidEye Imagery
Team
Sarah Payne (Project Lead)
Karina Alvarez
Rachel Darling
Alex Gunnerson
Sophia Stonebrook
Advisor(s)
Benjamin Holt (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology)
Dr. Christine Lee (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology)
Dr. Bruce Chapman (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology)