Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2004NC42B

Integration of High Resolution Imagery in Cost-effective Assessment of Land Use Practices Influencing Erosion and Sediment Yield

Institute: North Carolina
Year Established: 2004 Start Date: 2004-03-01 End Date: 2006-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $47,616 Total Non-Federal Funds: $95,230

Principal Investigators: Siamak Khorram, Stacy Nelson

Project Summary: National concerns have increasingly focused on the degradation of this nations water quality and associated resources. As the Nation's population increases, so does society's ability to continuously alter the landscape leading to amplified surface loadings from storm and watershed overflow, increased suspended sediments in runoff, and agricultural and industrial drainage problems. Monitoring land use has become critically important as best management controls must now directly contend with the need for additional agricultural, industrial and urban needs and the desire to protect water quality. Accurately classifying and quantifying LU/LC within a watershed at frequent intervals is an important component of monitoring watershed quality. The research proposed here is a continuation of research designed to develop the methodologies needed to apply new, high resolution satellite imagery to mapping LU/LC. Our research has a particular focus on providing current data for hydrologic and water quality assessments: (1) LU/LC that influences erosion and sediment yield, (2) LU/LC classes that provide ease of generating weighted runoff curve numbers, (3) mapping riparian zones, and (4) mapping connectivity of impervious surfaces or potential pollutant sources to the stream network. We already have an extensive geospatial dataset at the NCSU Center for Earth Observation (CEO), which will be used in this project. During our previous study, IKONOS satellite data proved to be an effective means to quantify land use composition within an urban watershed. We propose to investigate the use of multi-date IKONOS imagery with multivariate image analysis, and proprietary fusion techniques to assess the use of IKONOS in improving LU/LC classifications within an urban watershed. We also propose to investigate SPOT-5 imagery that has recently (2002) become available to the public. The SPOT-5 satellite can provide 5-meter resolution for multi-spectral images and 2.5-meter resolution for panchromatic images. Due to its cost-effectiveness and routine multi-date availability for all areas of the state, SPOT-5 data will be superior to IKONOS data for routine assessment of current conditions and change analysis. We propose to use advanced data fusion techniques (patent pending) that we have developed at CEO to fuse the 2.5 and 5-meter resolution imagery to obtain multi-spectral imagery with 2.5 meter spatial resolution with preserved spectral integrity for use in this project. We also propose to integrate LIDAR data for more accurate location of the streams and the adjacent land use practices. Extensive field data obtained using GPS will also be integrated for the accuracy assessment of LU/LC data and validation. During Phase 2 of this project, multi-date imagery will be used to develop methods for change detection, i.e., analyze changes in the land use management practices that influence erosion and sediment yield.