Research project NG| Hydrogeodesic assessment of artificial interruptions between rivers and their coastal systems

The technology of Wetland Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, termed as Wetland InSAR, has been used to study water flow in wetlands and more recently to assess the implications of human activities for basin hydrologic connectivity. However, these studies have up to date mostly studied tropical wetlands with mangrove ecosystems, leaving wetland ecosystems of Northern latitudes largely ignored. Furthermore, most Wetland InSAR studies are aimed at and written for the remote sensing community, with low infiltration of this technology into the hydrologic community, where it would prove most useful. First, it aims to understand the implications of human activities for hydrologic connectivity between river networks and their coastal wetlands for two iconic Northern coastal wetlands; the lakes and wetland systems of Sweden and Selenga River basins in the Baltic and Baikal Lake regions, respectively. Second, it will generate scientific outcomes that will enable the use of the Wetland InSAR technology, and of forefront data products such as those of Sentinel-1 from the Copernicus program, by hydrologists in order to understand wetland hydrodynamics and explore the impacts of human activities on hydrologic connectivity in Northern latitudes. Finally, in the last project phase we will exploit data from NASAs new NISAR mission to understand the future development of Wetland InSAR.

Link to high resolution vignette image

Selenga wo (1512 Kb)