Investigating the Use of Sentinel-1 for Improved Mapping of Small Peatland Water Bodies: Towards Wildfire Susceptibility Monitoring in Canada’s Boreal Forest
Peatlands provide vital ecosystem and carbon services, and Canada is home to a significant peatland carbon stock. Global climate warming trends are expected to lead to increased carbon release from peatlands, as a consequence of drought and wildfire. Monitoring hydrologic regimes is a key in underst...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2023-04-01
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| Series: | Hydrology |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5338/10/5/102 |
| _version_ | 1797599886166720512 |
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| author | Samantha Schultz Koreen Millard Samantha Darling René Chénier |
| author_facet | Samantha Schultz Koreen Millard Samantha Darling René Chénier |
| author_sort | Samantha Schultz |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Peatlands provide vital ecosystem and carbon services, and Canada is home to a significant peatland carbon stock. Global climate warming trends are expected to lead to increased carbon release from peatlands, as a consequence of drought and wildfire. Monitoring hydrologic regimes is a key in understanding the impacts of warming, including monitoring changes in small and temporally variable water bodies in peatlands. Global surface water mapping has been implemented, but the spatial and temporal scales of the resulting data products prevent the effective monitoring of peatland water bodies, which are small and prone to rapid hydrologic changes. One hurdle in the quest to improve remote-sensing-derived global surface water map quality is the omission of small and temporally variable water bodies. This research investigated the reasons for small peatland water body omission as a preparatory step for surface water mapping, using Sentinel-1 SAR data and image classification methods. It was found that Sentinel-1 backscatter signatures for small peatland water bodies differ from large water bodies, due in part to differing physical characteristics such as waves and emergent vegetation, and limitations in detectable feature sizes as a result of SAR image processing and resolution. The characterization of small peatland water body backscatter provides a theoretical basis for the development of SAR-based surface water mapping methods with high accuracy for our purposes of wildfire susceptibility monitoring in peatlands. This study discusses the implications of small peatland water body omission from surface water maps on carbon, climate, and hydrologic models. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T03:40:40Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-87c19572f0fc4d4d8da8b93e96305247 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2306-5338 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T03:40:40Z |
| publishDate | 2023-04-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Hydrology |
| spelling | doaj.art-87c19572f0fc4d4d8da8b93e963052472023-11-18T01:35:23ZengMDPI AGHydrology2306-53382023-04-0110510210.3390/hydrology10050102Investigating the Use of Sentinel-1 for Improved Mapping of Small Peatland Water Bodies: Towards Wildfire Susceptibility Monitoring in Canada’s Boreal ForestSamantha Schultz0Koreen Millard1Samantha Darling2René Chénier3Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel by Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, CanadaDepartment of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel by Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, CanadaDepartment of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel by Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, CanadaCanadian Hydrographic Service, 200 Kent Street, Ottawa, ON K1A 0E6, CanadaPeatlands provide vital ecosystem and carbon services, and Canada is home to a significant peatland carbon stock. Global climate warming trends are expected to lead to increased carbon release from peatlands, as a consequence of drought and wildfire. Monitoring hydrologic regimes is a key in understanding the impacts of warming, including monitoring changes in small and temporally variable water bodies in peatlands. Global surface water mapping has been implemented, but the spatial and temporal scales of the resulting data products prevent the effective monitoring of peatland water bodies, which are small and prone to rapid hydrologic changes. One hurdle in the quest to improve remote-sensing-derived global surface water map quality is the omission of small and temporally variable water bodies. This research investigated the reasons for small peatland water body omission as a preparatory step for surface water mapping, using Sentinel-1 SAR data and image classification methods. It was found that Sentinel-1 backscatter signatures for small peatland water bodies differ from large water bodies, due in part to differing physical characteristics such as waves and emergent vegetation, and limitations in detectable feature sizes as a result of SAR image processing and resolution. The characterization of small peatland water body backscatter provides a theoretical basis for the development of SAR-based surface water mapping methods with high accuracy for our purposes of wildfire susceptibility monitoring in peatlands. This study discusses the implications of small peatland water body omission from surface water maps on carbon, climate, and hydrologic models.https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5338/10/5/102peatlandsurface waterSentinel-1 |
| spellingShingle | Samantha Schultz Koreen Millard Samantha Darling René Chénier Investigating the Use of Sentinel-1 for Improved Mapping of Small Peatland Water Bodies: Towards Wildfire Susceptibility Monitoring in Canada’s Boreal Forest Hydrology peatland surface water Sentinel-1 |
| title | Investigating the Use of Sentinel-1 for Improved Mapping of Small Peatland Water Bodies: Towards Wildfire Susceptibility Monitoring in Canada’s Boreal Forest |
| title_full | Investigating the Use of Sentinel-1 for Improved Mapping of Small Peatland Water Bodies: Towards Wildfire Susceptibility Monitoring in Canada’s Boreal Forest |
| title_fullStr | Investigating the Use of Sentinel-1 for Improved Mapping of Small Peatland Water Bodies: Towards Wildfire Susceptibility Monitoring in Canada’s Boreal Forest |
| title_full_unstemmed | Investigating the Use of Sentinel-1 for Improved Mapping of Small Peatland Water Bodies: Towards Wildfire Susceptibility Monitoring in Canada’s Boreal Forest |
| title_short | Investigating the Use of Sentinel-1 for Improved Mapping of Small Peatland Water Bodies: Towards Wildfire Susceptibility Monitoring in Canada’s Boreal Forest |
| title_sort | investigating the use of sentinel 1 for improved mapping of small peatland water bodies towards wildfire susceptibility monitoring in canada s boreal forest |
| topic | peatland surface water Sentinel-1 |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5338/10/5/102 |
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