Remotely Sensing the Morphometrics and Dynamics of a Cold Region Dune Field Using Historical Aerial Photography and Airborne LiDAR Data

Abstract

This study uses an airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) survey, historical aerial photography and historical climate data to describe the character and dynamics of the Nogahabara Sand Dunes, a sub-Arctic dune field in interior Alaska's discontinuous permafrost zone. The Nogahabara Sand Dunes consist of a 43-km 2 area of active transverse and barchanoid dunes within a 3200-km 2 area of vegetated dune and sand sheet deposits. The average dune height in the active portion of the dune field is 5.8 m, with a maximum dune height of 28 m. Dune spacing is variable with average crest-to-crest distances for select transects ranging from 66-132 m. Between 1952 and 2015, dunes migrated at an average rate of 0.52 m a −1. Dune movement was greatest between 1952 and 1978 (0.68 m a −1) and least between 1978 and 2015 (0.43 m a −1). Dunes migrated predominantly to the southeast; however, along the dune field margin, net migration was towards the edge of the dune field regardless of heading. Better constraining the processes controlling dune field dynamics at the Nogahabara dunes would provide information that can be used to model possible reactivation of more northerly dune fields and sand sheets in response to climate change, shifting fire regimes and permafrost thaw.

Comparing High Accuracy t-LiDAR and UAV-SfM Derived Point Clouds for Geomorphological Change Detection

“…Additionally, the TLS has a horizontal perspective compared to the nadir direction of the ALS. Hence, the TLS method can achieve higher accuracy, while the ALS is less time consuming, resulting in a more cost-effective approach [33][34][35][36]. In particular, a possible combination of ALS and TLS could potentially raise the measurement accuracy, if overlapping datasets could minimize the drawbacks of each separate method.…”

Linking the Remote Sensing of Geodiversity and Traits Relevant to Biodiversity—Part II: Geomorphology, Terrain and Surfaces

“…Nowadays, with its different sensor characteristics and various platforms, RS is an essential technology for monitoring aeolian structural diversity [150] (see also Table 5). With the implementation of RS, numerous geomorphic diversity characteristics are used, i.e., the spatial-temporal patterns of dunes (length, minimum spacing density, orientation, height and sinuosity, [151,152], the composition and configuration of aeolian dune patterns i.e., the complexity, diversity, shapes, patterns and heterogeneity based on Landsat and SRTM RS data [153] or multisensory data using Landsat-7 ETM+ and data from Digital Orthophoto Quarter Quadrangles (DOQQs) [154]. Mechanisms that lead to the history of aeolian patterns based on RADAR have been monitored by multiple complementary RADAR RS sensor complexes (SIR-C imaging, SRTM interferometry-derived elevations and RADAR sounding or ground penetrating RADAR (GPR)) [155].…”

Migration of barchan dunes in the western Quruq Desert, northwestern China

“…The main methods of studying dune migration are monitoring of changes in dune morphology (Dong et al, 2000), comparison of remote-sensing images from different years (Al-Mutiry et al, 2016;Boulghobra and Dridi, 2016;Baughman et al, 2018;Hoover et al, 2018), numerical simulation (Tsoar, 1984;Durán et al, 2010;Parteli et al, 2014;Ping et al, 2016), using multi-temporal LiDAR data and a new approach named the 'pairs of source and target points' (Dong, 2015), and dating of sediments at different depths below the dune's slipface using optically stimulated luminescence dating. Highresolution satellite images have proven to be an ideal information source for obtaining the information about dune migration (Bourke, 2010;Hereher, 2010;Dakir et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2018b).…”