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April 5, 2021
AVIRIS-NG completes vegetation lines!
By Marc SimardToday, the AVIRIS-NG team completed the Delta-X Spring coverage of all planned vegetation lines. We now have the spectral signature (432 bands) of the entire Atchafalaya and Terrebonne Basins, in addition to bonus partial coverage of Barataria Bay. Bravo to our operators John Chapman and Luis Rios!
- This morning, AVIRIS-NG flew vegetation Box C lines to finish off the vegetation Lines. The Water Quality field team took this opportunity to obtain an additional in situ measurement around station 396 to be coincident to these AVIRIS-NG overflights even if the lines were planned for vegetation mapping.
- In the afternoon, AVIRIS-NG was able to also fly the planned Terrebonne water quality-specific lines, although partly cloudy. But it’s okay, those lines do not need to be perfectly covered but at least provide transects of water quality variability across the landscape and coincide with in situ measurements by Delta-X Water Quality field team.
UAVSAR PolSAR image over the Atchafalaya Basin
Both the UAVSAR and AirSWOT completed their first set of loops in the Terrebonne basin. AirSWOT’s Jack Bush and UAVSAR’s Tim Miller are not dizzy yet and are ready for more.
Water Quality Team in transit
The Water Quality Team was really efficient today. After sampling the vicinity of 396 during AVIRIS-NG’s vegetation flight line, the team went on to Delta-X intensive site 421 to be in position for the afternoon’s AVIRIS-NG flight of water quality. They succeeded again! No clouds there either. They then transited to Caillou lake and scored another in situ measurement of water quality coincident with AVIRIS-NG. Three cal/val sites in one day! Way to go Matt Weiser and Josh Harringmeyer.
Optical Profiling System (C-OPS instrument) used by the team to characterize optical properties of water with depth
The ADCP Team collected 2 series of transects across channels surrounding Delta-X intensive site 421. In total they did 14 transects that provide measurements of water flow and distribution in those channels.
The LSU Island Team collected data, coincident with ADCP team, along transects in site 421. They measured water flow over the island using a flow tracker. Both sets of measurement, taken at 9:30am and 2:30pm showed little water and no flow. Note that Andre is everywhere for Delta-X: field logistics, vegetation, cores, RTK and flow sampling! Andre Rovai, a Delta-X hero.
Andre Rovai with the flow tracker
Measurement showed little water and no flow
The first Delta-X UAVSAR PolSAR datasets for March 27 are now available online!! Here are a couple examples over the Atchafalaya Basin: atchaf_06309 and atchaf_19809.
Finally, Delta-X is in the NASA news.