Quantifying river migration rates in the Yukon River Watershed from optical satellite imagery, Alaska, 2016-2022 ...

• Main Authors: Geyman, Emily, Avouac, Jean-Philippe, Douglas, Madison, Dunne, Kieran, Ke, Yutian, Magyar, John, Reahl, Jocelyn, Seelen, Emily, Smith, Isabel, West, Joshua, Lamb, Michael
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: NSF Arctic Data Center 2024
• Subjects: Huslia; Yukon; Yukon river; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.18739/a2ww7719j; https://arcticdata.io/catalog/view/doi:10.18739/A2WW7719J

This dataset describes measurements of river migration rates (averaged over the period 2016-2022) in three locations within the Yukon River Watershed: Huslia, Alaska (AK) (65.700 N, 156.387 W), Beaver, AK (66.362 N, 147.398 W), and Alakanuk, AK (62.685 N, 164.644 W). Huslia is located on the Koyukuk River and Beaver and Alakanuk are located on the Yukon River. The river migration rates are quantified from sub-pixel correlation of optical satellite imagery (Sentinel-2 imagery, 10 meter (m) spatial resolution), following the methodology of Geyman et al. (2024). The methodology allows for the detection of riverbank erosion at scales approximately 5-10 times smaller than the pixel size, so the detection threshold is 1-2 m over the approximately 7-year interval, corresponding to a migration rate of 0.1 to 0.3 m/year. The motion of the eroding and accreting sides of the river are quantified separately. The river migration rate datasets are made available as georeferenced shapefiles. ...