Landscape Scale Assessment of Floodplain Inundation Frequency Using Landsat Imagery

Abstract

In large river ecosystems, the timing, extent, duration and frequency of floodplain inundation greatly affect the quality of fish and wildlife habitat and the supply of important ecosystem goods and services. Seasonal high flows provide connectivity from the river to the floodplain, and seasonal inundation of the floodplain governs ecosystem structure and function. River regulation and other forms of hydrologic alteration have altered the connectivity of many rivers with their adjacent floodplain – impacting the function of wetlands on the floodplain and in turn, impacting the mainstem river function. Conservation and management of remaining floodplain resources can be improved through a better understanding of the spatial extent and frequency of inundation at scales that are relevant to the species and/or ecological processes of interest. Spatial data products describing dynamic aspects floodplain inundation are, however, not widely available. This study used Landsat imagery to generate multiple observations of inundation extent under varying hydrologic conditions to estimate inundation frequency. Inundation extent was estimated for 50 Landsat scenes and 1334 total images within the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GCPO LCC), a conservation science partnership working in a 730 000‐km2 region in the south central USA. These data were composited into a landscape mosaic to depict relative inundation frequency over the entire GCPO LCC. An analytical methodology is presented for linking the observed inundation extent and frequency with long‐term gage measurements so that the outcomes may be useful in defining meaningful critical thresholds for a variety of floodplain dependent organisms as well as important ecological processes. Published 2015. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA

Development of a Flow‐Specific Floodplain Inundation Model to Assess Alligator Gar Recruitment Success

“…) and the fact that most agricultural production in the middle Trinity River basin consists of crops that resemble herbaceous or small woody vegetation (e.g., cotton, corn, and soybeans). Additional analysis utilizing our flow‐specific inundation maps, in combination with flood frequency analysis (e.g., Allen ), could help identify critical Alligator Gar spawning areas in the middle Trinity River.…”

An Overview of Flood Risk Analysis Methods

“…South America (5%) [37][38][39][40][41] and Africa (4%) [42][43][44][45][46] showed less research interest (Figure 2). Following a detailed analysis of each region, we found that the most researched areas were: the United States, representing 13.19% of the total articles analyzed and 71.72% of the articles located in North America [47][48][49]; the United Kingdom, with 90 articles representing 17.92% of the articles in Europe and 6.78% of the total papers [50][51][52]; Italy and Spain, accounting for 5.27% of the entire articles and 13.94% of the scientific papers published in Europe, respectively [53][54][55]; and China, accounting for 5.27% of the total articles and 20.11% of the articles in Asia [56][57][58]. A significant percentage of publications also came from India, representing 16.6% of all Asian scientific articles and 4.37% of the total publications [59][60][61].…”

Trends of litter decomposition and soil organic matter stocks across forested swamp environments of the southeastern US

“…Drawdown % was calculated separately for each plot at each site by using day-of-visit water depth to estimate daily changes in water elevation by matching plot depths to the nearest continuously recording hydrologic gauge [34][35][42][43] (S2 Table). Water depths were recorded at monuments associated with Sediment Elevation Tables (stationary elevation markers) [44]) and matched with plot water depths during the site visit with the "flood date" designated as the deepest recorded "flood" during field work from 2002-2019 (S2 Table).…”