Understanding The Downstream Impacts Of On-Farm Reservoirs

On-farm reservoirs play a critical role in crop irrigation. They store water during the wet season for subsequent use for crop irrigation during the dry season. In the U.S. alone, there are an estimated 2.6 million such reservoirs. However, storing this water has poorly understood impacts on downstream hydrology and ecosystems. The amount of water stored also varies from year to year based on the precipitation rates of the wet seasons. A new study led by Vinicius Perin of North Carolina State University, partially conducted while Perin was an intern in Planet’s Professional Services team, utilizes Planet data in combination with European Space Agency Sentinel-1 radar and Sentinel-2 optical data. It studies the variations in these reservoirs at sub-weekly timescales across the seasons. Many of these reservoirs are smaller than 50 ha in surface area, so high resolution imagery is required to accurately determine their extents. Analyzing over 700 separate reservoirs, Perin et al. created a method involving Kalman filters to monitor reservoir surface area change over time. “[T]he approach presented in this study [has] the potential to enhance water conservation plans by allowing better assessment and management” of on-farm reservoirs, the authors note in their paper. “[T]his information can be used for water irrigation management recommendations aiming to increase water use efficiency.”
 

The full study can be found in Remote Sensing of Environment.

SkySat view of the Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai volcano on July 14, 2021.

FEATURED SCIENCE

Expanding Islands in the South Pacific

In early 2015, an underwater volcano in the South Pacific explosively erupted, forming a new island within the Polynesian nation of Tonga. Scientists initially thought that the island would vanish within a matter of months, which is often the case for small volcanic islands due to the erosive power of ocean waves. But seven years later, the island not only still stands—it has grown dramatically. Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center are keeping a close eye on the island changing with Planet and other satellite datasets.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Upcoming Webinar: Predicting, Monitoring, and Analyzing Wildfires With Planet Data

Join us on Wednesday, February 2nd to learn how Planet data can help determine solutions for wildfires during all stages of fire emergency management response, including pre-fire assessment, active fire monitoring, and post-fire recovery. These fire management tools can be integrated into broader applications, including other data sources, to help form clear insights for direct fire response efforts.

In this free webinar, you’ll learn how to utilize Planet imagery for:

• Monitoring dynamic pre-fire risk conditions and environmental baselines

• Identifying potential area spread and locations of standing water while responding to active fires

• Classifying post-fire areas of recovery, burn scars (including intensity and severity), vegetation health, as well as determining potential landslide risk criteria

• Data visualization outputs using a variety of PlanetScope imagery in different supported integrations, such as Google Earth Engine and ESRI ArcGIS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Next Planet Researcher Training Sessions: New PSScene Asset Types and Accessing 8-Band SuperDove Data; API Toolchains

Searching for and downloading Planet data is about to get easier with our PSScene assets. Product Manager for Imagery Production Mariana Curdoglo, will discuss the technical details of PSScene assets, including accessing our 8-band SuperDove data on Friday, January 28th at 9AM PT/12PM ET.
 

On Friday, February 11th at 9AM PT/12PM ET, we will be hosting a webinar where you will learn about Planet API tools and toolchains, and how you can leverage these to reduce your time and effort in preprocessing from Solutions Architect Dr. Samapriya Roy. We will work with how to do band math, composite, reproject, and more.
 

Register for free at the links below.

Missed one of our previous training sessions? Don’t fret—they’re all available in one YouTube playlist for your convenience!

CONFERENCE

Upcoming Conferences

Call for Abstracts: Frontiers in Hydrology

ABSTRACT DEADLINE: JANUARY 26, 2022

The American Geophysical Union and Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc., are accepting abstracts for a new meeting for the hydrology community, the Frontiers in Hydrology Meeting, to be held June 19–24 2022, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The greater hydrology community requested and created this inaugural, biennial Frontiers in Hydrology Meeting to:

• Communicate science and its integration in other disciplines

• Formulate, implement and test innovative approaches to convene the water community in a format that elevates discussion rather than presentations

• Create new multidisciplinary collaborations

53rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC)

MARCH 7–11, 2022

The 53rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) will be held as a hybrid conference on March 7th–11th, 2022. LPSC is recognized as the world’s premier planetary science conference, bringing together international specialists in petrology, geochemistry, geophysics, geology, astronomy, and astrobiology to present the latest results of research in planetary science. With in-person and global virtual participation, attendees will have the opportunity to share their research and network with colleagues. Mark your calendars and join us for the 53rd LPSC!