Water and Coastal Zone Applications

Coastal Zone Management

USRA, Battelle, and NASA scientists are collaborating on research into the impacts of urbanization on sea grasses and submerged aquatic vegetation with remotely sensed data and spatial-growth and hydrologic models. The study focuses on the Mobile Bay region with results that should be extendable to the Gulf of Mexico region from south Florida to Mesoamerica. USRA scientists will use data on urbanization's impact on regional hydrology and sensitive environmental resources by evaluating the impact of freshwater flows into the Bay on salinity and temperature.

Soil Moisture Research

AMSR-E image showing the snow depth in the Northern Hemisphere. Image courtesy NASA.

USRA surface hydrology scientists' primary mission is to conduct scientific research on the water and energy cycle and develop solutions to water management issues by integrating Earth observing systems, modeling, and information technology. The scientists have focused on validation of Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) brightness temperatures and retrieved soil moisture using an in-house developed coupled hydrologic and radiobrightness model. The surface hydrology team has developed an innovative optimal deconvolution algorithm for highly over-sampled data to exploit differences in emissions from heterogeneous surfaces and has conducted extensive research addressing the sensitivity of soil moisture retrieval to errors in estimation of parameters, many of which are derived from ancillary data sources. USRA researchers propose to use a land surface/hydrology model to estimate land surface temperature and soil moisture profiles for input into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale model for operational regional forecasting with the expectation that this will lead to improved mesoscale forecasts.

Water Management

MODIS captured image of 2007 floods in Texas and Oklahoma. Image courtesy NASA.

USRA and NSSTC scientists are currently using NASA's satellite-based observations to improve operational river forecasts delivered by NOAA's National Weather Service River Forecast Center Decision Support System. It is proposed to benchmark improvements in streamflow forecasts as a direct result of assimilation of two NASA remotely sensed data products to better quantify the impact that NASA data products and models have on streamflow forecasting. This effort is directly linked to the NASA Water Management Program's roadmap to improve the accuracy of water management predictions of another federal agency in operational decision-making.

Global Hydrologic Cycle Studies

TRMM image showing sea surface temperature while Hurricane Jeanne was churning in the Atlantic Ocean. Image courtesy NASA.

USRA has provided research on topics related to: (1) the uncertainty in the tropical ocean latent heat flux variability using 20 years of data, and (2) recent water and energy cycle variations as seen from TRMM and other sensors. USRA researchers are extending the use of surface, airborne, and space-based observations along with the full range of models to contribute to better understanding of variations in the hydrologic cycle and feedback between the hydrologic cycle and the Earth's total energy budget. USRA scientists, in particular, are working to improve our understanding of convective parameterization schemes being used in the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) General Circulation Model.

Watershed and Hydrodynamic Modeling

Submerged aquatic vegetation. Image courtesy NOAA.

Modeling applications have been recently used by USRA and partners to evaluate the impact of Land Cover Land Use change on the Mobile Bay aquatic ecosystems. Model results from the Loading Simulation Program (a watershed modeling C++ application) and the Environmental Fluid Dynamics Code (a hydrodynamic model) have provided data on fluxes in temperature, salinity, and sediment that are used to determine impacts on habitats of seagrass and submerged aquatic vegetation. Additionally these modeling applications provide algorithms for simulating general water quality and simplified stream transport.