Use of Synthetic Aperture Radar for Selecting Alaskan Lakes for Winter Water Use 1

• Published in: JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association
• Main Authors: White, D.M., Prokein, P., Chambers, M.K., Lilly, M.R., Toniolo, H.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2008
• Subjects: Arctic; Northern Foothills; Brooks Range; north slope; Alaska
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2007.00160.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1752-1688.2007.00160.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2007.00160.x

Abstract: Water resources are limited in many areas of the North Slope, Alaska, particularly during winter. Water is used by the oil industry for ice road construction and maintenance, drilling and facility operations, and potable water supplies. The coastal plain between Teshekpuk Lake, in the National Petroleum Reserve‐Alaska (NPR‐A) and the Colville River has numerous shallow lakes, but further south in the northern foothills of the Brooks Range, and east to the Canning River, lakes are fewer. While many oil and gas lease sales have been conducted, or are proposed, access to the leases may be limited because of the lack of available water for ice road construction. Ice roads are the main means by which exploration is conducted in the Arctic, putting a stress on freshwater bodies that do not freeze to the lakebed in winter. Lakes that do not freeze to the lakebed also serve as overwintering habitat for fish. The purpose of this paper is to report on the potential distribution of water bodies that may provide overwinter water in selected areas from Teshekpuk Lake to the Canning River. The project used synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery to search for the presence of water in lakes in March 2006. In the Kuparuk and Canning SAR images, 52 and 61% of lakes were frozen to their beds by March 2006, accounting for 49 and 57% of the lake area in these study regions. Conversely, only 2% of the lakes in the Teshekpuk region were frozen to the bottom by March 2006. Unfrozen water was more available because of deeper and more numerous lakes in the Teshekpuk Lake region (west) than in the Canning River area (east). While only specific SAR tiles were analyzed herein, the method will be a useful tool for land managers who seek to evaluate the potential for ice road construction across the Arctic.