USGS: Potential for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems applications for identifying groundwater-surface water exchange in a meandering river reach

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Potential for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems applications for identifying groundwater-surface water exchange in a meandering river reach

H. Pai (1), H. Malenda (2), M. Briggs (3), K. Singha (2), R. González-Pinzón (4), M. Gooseff (5), S.W. Tyler (1), and the AirCTEMPS Team

1 Dept. of Geological Sciences and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno
2 Hydrologic Science and Engineering Program, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401
3 U .S. Geological Survey, Office of Groundwater, Branch of Geophysics, Storrs CT 06269
4 Department of Civil Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
5 Institute of Arctic & Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 USA. Corresponding author: Henry Pai (henryp@unr.edu)

Abstract

The exchange of groundwater and surface water (GW-SW), including dissolved constituents and energy, represents a critical yet challenging characterization problem for hydrogeologists and stream ecologists. Here, we describe the use of a suite of high spatial-resolution remote- sensing techniques, collected using a small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS), to provide novel and complementary data to analyze GW-SW exchange. sUAS provided centimeter- scale resolution topography and water surface elevations, which are often drivers of exchange along the river corridor. Additionally, sUAS-based vegetation imagery, vegetation-top elevation, and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) mapping indicated GW-SW exchange patterns that are difficult to characterize from the land surface and may not be resolved from coarser satellite-based imagery. We combined these data with estimates of sediment hydraulic conductivity to provide a direct estimate of GW "shortcutting" through meander necks, which was corroborated by temperature data at the riverbed interface.

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Final copy as submitted to Geophysical Research Letters for publication as: Pai, H., Malenda, H., Briggs, M.A., Singha, K., González-Pinzón, R., Gooseff, M., Tyler, S.W., and AirCTEMPS Team, 2017, Potential for small unmanned aircraft systems applications for identifying groundwater-surface water exchange in a meandering river reach: Geophysical Research Letters, http://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL075836.

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