Delineating and Evaluating Vegetation Conditions of Vernal Pools Using Spaceborne and Airborne Remote Sensing Techniques

• Main Authors: Beale Air, Force Base, Robert W. Lichvar, David C. Finnegan, Stephen Newman, Walter Ochs
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: Beale; Airborne Topographic Mapper
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.63.7026; http://www.crrel.usace.army.mil/techpub/CRREL_Reports/reports/TN06-3.pdf

Abstract: Remote sensing techniques were employed to identify aquatic resources, including vernal pools and riparian areas, at Beale Air Force Base (AFB) in September 2005. Aquatic resources previously identified at Beale AFB were delineated in the field and precisely located with a global position system (GPS). Though precise, these GPS maps were not comprehensive enough to fully understand the distribution and character of the aquatic system. Using those field results, we developed techniques to identify these and similar locations using digitally derived spectral signatures from IKONOS high-resolution multispectral imagery. To refine the delineation results obtained from the multispectral imagery, highresolution topographic data were acquired over the study area using NASA’s Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM) waveform LiDAR. Using the post-processed digital elevation models (DEM) and a series of statistical approaches, we eliminated many false positive identifications and developed a comprehensive Geographic Information System (GIS) based