This paper evaluates the accuracy of shoreline positions obtained from the infrared (IR) bands of Landsat 7, Landsat 8, and Sentinel-2 imagery on natural beaches. A workflow for sub-pixel shoreline extraction, already tested on seawalls, is used. The present work analyzes the behavior of that workflow and resultant shorelines on a micro-tidal (<20 cm) sandy beach and makes a comparison with other more accurate sets of shorelines. These other sets were obtained using differential GNSS surveys and terrestrial photogrammetry techniques through the C-Pro monitoring system. 21 sub-pixel shorelines and their respective high-precision lines served for the evaluation. The results prove that NIR bands can easily confuse the shoreline with whitewater, whereas SWIR bands are more reliable in this respect. Moreover, it verifies that shorelines obtained from bands 11 and 12 of Sentinel-2 are very similar to those obtained with bands 6 and 7 of Landsat 8 (−0.75 ± 2.5 m; negative sign indicates landward bias). The variability of the brightness in the terrestrial zone influences shoreline detection: brighter zones cause a small landward bias. A relation between the swell and shoreline accuracy is found, mainly identified in images obtained from Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2. On natural beaches, the mean shoreline error varies with the type of image used. After analyzing the whole set of shorelines detected from Landsat 7, we conclude that the mean horizontal error is 4.63 m (±6.55 m) and 5.50 m (±4.86 m), respectively, for high and low gain images. For the Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 shorelines, the mean error reaches 3.06 m (±5.79 m).

Industrial emissions play a major role in the global methane budget. The Permian basin is thought to be responsible for almost half of the methane emissions from all U.S. oil- and gas-producing regions, but little is known about individual contributors, a prerequisite for mitigation. We use a new class of satellite measurements acquired during several days in 2019 and 2020 to perform the first regional-scale and high-resolution survey of methane sources in the Permian. We find an unexpectedly large number of extreme point sources (37 plumes with emission rates >500 kg hour−1), which account for a range between 31 and 53% of the estimated emissions in the sampled area. Our analysis reveals that new facilities are major emitters in the area, often due to inefficient flaring operations (20% of detections). These results put current practices into question and are relevant to guide emission reduction efforts.

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