ASPRS

PE&RS March 1997

VOLUME 63, NUMBER 3
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND REMOTE SENSING

Peer Reviewed Articles

263-265 An Examination of Measuring Selected Water Quality Trophic Indicators with SPOT Satellite HRV Data
Stefan H. Cairns, Kenneth L. Dickson, and Samuel F. Atkinson

Abstract
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Concurrent in situ water quality and SPOT satellite data were obtained for three reservoirs located in north Texas. In situ data included measurement of chlorophyll a, pheophytin a, total suspended solids, total dissolved solids, and turbidity. The SPOT data from locations of water samples were subset and digital data were examined in their raw states as well as numerous transformations. Low but significant correlations were observed between digital numbers and both turbidity and chlorophyll a. The degree of correlation was not as great as in previously reported studies using SPOT and Landsat data. To be useful for reservoir scale monitoring in north Texas, the techniques still need to be refined sufficiently to detect differences within the range of water quality typically found in the area under study.

267-271 The Role of Spatial Resolution in Quantifying SSC from Airborne Remotely Sensed Data
Jay Gao and Stephen M. O'Leary

Abstract
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Suspended solids concentration (SSC) was measured at 90 positions when aerial photographs were being taken. The aerial photographs were scanned at 300 dpi, geometrically and radiometrically rectified, and mosaicked. The mosaicked image was resampled from 1 m to 5 m, 10 m, and 20 m, from which the digital numbers (DN) at the SSC sampling positions were obtained. There was a significant linear relationship between SSC and DN at all four resolution levels. The regressed relationship between SSC and its DN is the most accurate at a spatial resolution of 10 m.

273-279 Flood-Tide Deltaic Wetlands: Detection of Their Sequential Spatial Evolution
Qizhong Guo and Norbert P. Psuty

Abstract
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Techniques to detect evolution of marsh islands in Great Egg Harbor Bay, New Jersey are presented in this paper. Aerial photographs and topographic maps were digitized. A geographic information system (GIS) was subsequently established with the digitized data. A computer program was also written to carry out necessary computations. Through these efforts, change in area, shift of centroid, and rotation of marsh islands were quantified.

281-291 Monitoring South Florida Wetlands Using ERS-1 SAR Imagery
Eric S. Kasischke and Laura L. Bourgeau-Chavez

Abstract
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This study evaluates the utility of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery collected by the ERS-1 satellite for monitoring wetland vegetation communities in southwestern Florida. The range of image intensity values from the different test sites varied by a factor of 6.2 (7.9 dB) on a dry season ERS-1 SAR image and by a factor of 2.6 (4.1 dB) for a wet season ERS-1 SAR image. The results of this study illustrate that radar imagery is uniquely suited to detect and monitor changes in soil moisture, flooding, and aboveground biomass in these wetland ecosystems.

293-297 AVHRR Imagery Used to Identify Hurricane Damage in a Forested Wetland of Louisiana
Elijah W. Ramsey III, Dal K. Chappell, and Dan G. Baldwin

Abstract
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On 26 August 1992, Hurricane Andrew passed through Louisiana, impacting a large area of forested wetlands. One response to the widespread defoliation resulting from the hurricane impact was an abnormal bloom of new leaves and new growth in the underlying vegetation between September and October. To capture this atypical phenology, a time sequence of AVHRR images was transformed into a normalized difference vegetation index, NDVI, as an indicator of vegetation changes in the forest impacted by the passage of a hurricane. Using geogrpahic information system functions, three sites in the impacted forest were vectorized as polygons, and the inclusive pixels were extracted for subsequent graphical and univariate statistical analysis. Temporal curves of mean NDVIs for the three sites for before, during, and after the hurricane passage, and aggregate curves of the impacted forest to an undisturbed forest, were compared. These comparisons corraborated the atypical phenology of the impacted forested wetland and directly related the cause to the hurricane passage.

299-306 Assessing Corn Yield and Nitrogen Uptake Variability with Digitized Aerial Infrared Photographs
M.D. Tomer, J.L. Anderson, and J.A. Lamb

Abstract
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Methods for large-scale mapping of crop variability are needed for precision farming applications. The authors hypothesized that aerial-infrared photographs can predict corn yield and N uptake variability. A 2.6-ha area in Minnesota was cropped with corn in 1991 and 1992. Photographs of bare soil and of the mature crops were color scanned. Corn yield and N uptake were determined at 58 locations, and were related to phototone data using multiple regression. Spatial analysis of imagery showed that the crop canopy was more influenced by soil conditions in 1991 than in 1992. This is attributed to the cooler climate in 1992. Consequently, harvest data were better predicted in 1991 than in 1992. In 1991, 65 percent of yield and 59 percent of N-uptake variability were captured by phototones; respective values for 1992 data were 47 percent and 37 percent. Use of aerial photographs for spatial modeling of crop growth can work, but multi-year studies are recommended.
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