Monitoring Everglades freshwater marsh water level using L-band synthetic aperture radar backscatter

Remote Sensing of Environment
By: , and 

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Abstract

The Florida Everglades plays a significant role in controlling floods, improving water quality, supporting ecosystems, and maintaining biodiversity in south Florida. Adaptive restoration and management of the Everglades requires the best information possible regarding wetland hydrology. We developed a new and innovative approach to quantify spatial and temporal variations in wetland water levels within the Everglades, Florida. We observed high correlations between water level measured at in situ gages and L-band SAR backscatter coefficients in the freshwater marsh, though C-band SAR backscatter has no close relationship with water level. Here we illustrate the complementarity of SAR backscatter coefficient differencing and interferometry (InSAR) for improved estimation of high spatial resolution water level variations in the Everglades. This technique has a certain limitation in applying to swamp forests with dense vegetation cover, but we conclude that this new method is promising in future applications to wetland hydrology research.

Study Area

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Monitoring Everglades freshwater marsh water level using L-band synthetic aperture radar backscatter
Series title Remote Sensing of Environment
DOI 10.1016/j.rse.2014.03.031
Volume 150
Year Published 2014
Language English
Publisher Elsevier
Contributing office(s) Eastern Geographic Science Center
Description 16 p.
Larger Work Type Article
Larger Work Subtype Journal Article
Larger Work Title Remote Sensing of Environment
First page 66
Last page 81
Country United States
State Florida
Other Geospatial Everglades
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