colorado river delta aerial data
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Aerial Photos

The Basemap

Developing a GIS

IBWC Graphs

Ground Photos

Imaging Requirements

Developing a Basemap

Remote Sensing

Satellite Images

Techniques for Mapping

Vegetation Mapping

Aerial-level Data

Oblique mosaic of the delta


   Aerial surveys of the delta may be flown in transects around the core study areas with a MODIS Quick Airborne Looks (MQUALS) package consisting of Exotech radiometers with TM and MODIS filters, an infrared thermometer, and a multispectral (blue, red, NIR) camera, mounted on a small aircraft (Huete et al., 1999).

"The MQUALS sensor package may be used to acquire overlapping, 1,000 m, aerial imagery and "calibrated" top of the canopy reflectance measurements of the Colorado River floodplain. Moran et al. (1997c) review techniques for converting airborne imagery to reflectances. To the extent possible, these airborne data may be collected concurrently with ETM+/ MODIS overpasses and ground data collection.

"Processing of the radiometric data may rely on ground measurements made over a calibrated "spectralon" reference panel and cross calibration of the sensors to a standard reference panel housed in the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona. nadir imageThe MQUALS package, not only documents surface conditions at fine spatial resolution (< 0.5 m), but also enables the determination of percent vegetation cover, soil type, soil salinity, and species composition. MQUALS also provides a mechanism for up scaling ground measurements and aircraft based 'reflectance' and 'emittance' measurements to image based resolutions (e.g. ETM+, MODIS) for region wide monitoring purposes (Glenn et al., 2001c)."
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