Water Body Distributions Across Scales: A Remote Sensing Based Comparison of Three Arctic Tundra Wetlands

Remote Sensing

Sina Muster¹  Birgit Heim¹  Anna Abnizova² 

[1] Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Telegrafenberg A43, 14473 Potsdam, Germany; E-Mails:;Geography Department, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada; E-Mail:

关键词: remote sensing;    scaling;    surface hydrology;    permafrost;    ponds;    albedo;    subpixel mapping;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs5041498

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Water bodies are ubiquitous features in Arctic wetlands. Ponds, i.e., waters with a surface area smaller than 10⁴ m², have been recognized as hotspots of biological activity and greenhouse gas emissions but are not well inventoried. This study aimed to identify common characteristics of three Arctic wetlands including water body size and abundance for different spatial resolutions, and the potential of Landsat-5 TM satellite data to show the subpixel fraction of water cover (SWC) via the surface albedo. Water bodies were mapped using optical and radar satellite data with resolutions of 4 m or better, Landsat-5 TM at 30 m and the MODIS water mask (MOD44W) at 250 m resolution. Study sites showed similar properties regarding water body distributions and scaling issues. Abundance-size distributions showed a curved pattern on a log-log scale with a flattened lower tail and an upper tail that appeared Paretian. Ponds represented 95% of the total water body number. Total number of water bodies decreased with coarser spatial resolutions. However, clusters of small water bodies were merged into single larger water bodies leading to local overestimation of water surface area. To assess the uncertainty of coarse-scale products, both surface water fraction and the water body size distribution should therefore be considered. Using Landsat surface albedo to estimate SWC across different terrain types including polygonal terrain and drained thermokarst basins proved to be a robust approach. However, the albedo–SWC relationship is site specific and needs to be tested in other Arctic regions. These findings present a baseline to better represent small water bodies of Arctic wet tundra environments in regional as well as global ecosystem and climate models.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland