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ARS Home » Plains Area » Las Cruces, New Mexico » Range Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #310880
Title: Ecohydrology with unmanned aerial vehicles

Author
item VIVONI, ENRIQUE - Arizona State University
item Rango, Albert
item ANDERSON, CODY - Arizona State University
item PIERINI, NICOLE - Arizona State University
item SCHREINER-MCGRAW, ADAM - Arizona State University
item SARIPALLI, SRIKANTH - Arizona State University
item LALIBERTE, ANDREA - Non ARS Employee

Submitted to: Ecosphere
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/23/2014
Publication Date: 10/29/2014
Citation: Vivoni, E.R., Rango, A., Anderson, C.A., Pierini, N.A., Schreiner-Mcgraw, A.P., Saripalli, S., Laliberte, A.S. 2014. Ecohydrology with unmanned aerial vehicles. Ecosphere. 5(10):1-17. https://doi.org/10.1890%2FES14-00217.1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1890%2FES14-00217.1

Interpretive Summary: It is difficult to predict the water yield for many small basins because the resolution usually available for them is not sufficient for determining input parameters for models. In order to do this for a small watershed (Tromble Weir) on the Jornada, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) were flown repetitively over the basin seasonally. Hyperspatial data at about 5 cm resolution were obtained which allowed amount of bare soil and percent vegetation type were obtained. It was determined that the dominant shrub was Mariola as opposed to Mesquite or Creosote bush. Input of cover type was now possible for hydrologic model predictions. Aerial coverage at very high resolutions is now available to user agencies such as NRCS or BLM for modeling purposes or improved watershed characterization.

Technical Abstract: High-resolution characterization and predictions are a grand challenge for ecohydrology. Recent advances in flight control, robotics and miniaturized sensors using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide an unprecedented opportunity for characterizing, monitoring, and modeling ecohydrologic systems at high-resolution (<1 m) over a range of scales. How can the ecologic and hydrologic communities most effectively use UAVs for advancing the state of the art? This innovative viewpoints paper introduces the utility of multiple classes of UAVs for ecohydrologic investigations in two semiarid rangelands of the southwestern U.S. We discuss the UAV deployments, the derived image, terrain and vegetation products and their usefulness for ecohydrologic studies at two scales. In a land-atmosphere interaction study, high-resolution imagery products from a rotary-wing (UAV are used to characterize an eddy covariance footprint and scale up environmental sensor network observations to match the time-varying sampling area. In a surface and subsurface interaction study within a small watershed, a fixed-wing UAV is used to characterize the spatial distribution of terrain attributes and vegetation conditions which serve as input to a distributed ecohydrologic model whose predictions compared well with an environmental sensor network. We also point to several challenges in performing ecohydrology with UAVs with the intent of promoting this new self-service (do-it-yourself) model for high-resolution image acquisition over many scales. We believe unmanned aerial vehicles can fundamentally change how ecohydrologic science is conducted and offer way to merge remote sensing, environmental sensor networks and numerical models.