TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kaiser, Thomas
A1  - Wehrhan, Marc
A1  - Werner, Armin
A1  - Sommer, Michael
T1  - Regionalizing ecological moisture levels and groundwater levels in grassland areas using thermal remote sensing
JF  - Grassland science
N2  - Site-specific soil moisture and groundwater levels are key input parameters for ecological modeling. Obtaining such information in a comprehensive manner is difficult for large regions. We studied a floodplain region in the Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany, to examine the degree to which the average depth of groundwater tables can be derived from surface temperatures obtained by the ASTER radiospectrometer (spatial resolution of 90 m per pixel). A floristic ecological indicator representing the site-specific moisture level was applied to develop a proxy between the thermal satellite data and groundwater table depth. The use of spring scenes (late April to early May) from 2 years proved to be well suited for minimizing the effects of weather and land use. Vegetation surveys along transects that were 2 m wide across the pixel diagonals allowed for the calculation of average ecological moisture values of pixel-sites by applying Ellenberg-numbers. These values were used to calibrate the satellite data locally. There was a close relationship between surface temperature and the average ecological moisture value (R2 = 0.73). Average ecological moisture values were highly indicative of the average groundwater levels during a 7-year measurement series (R2 = 0.93). Satellite-supported thermal data from spring were suitable for estimating the average groundwater levels of low-lying grasslands on a larger scale. Ecological moisture values from the transect surveys effectively allowed the incorporation of relief heterogeneity within the thermal grid and the establishment of the correlation between thermal data and average groundwater table depth. Regression functions were used to produce a map of groundwater levels at the study site.
KW  - Ellenberg indicator values
KW  - groundwater table
KW  - satellite data
KW  - soil moisture
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-697X.2011.00240.x
SN  - 1744-6961
VL  - 58
IS  - 1
SP  - 42
EP  - 52
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Malden
ER  -