Assessing impacts of climate variability and land use/land cover change on the water balance components in the Sahel using Earth observations and hydrological modelling

Study region: Senegal river (SRB), Niger river (NRB), and Lake Chad basins (LCB). Study focus: We investigated the impacts of land use/land cover change (LULC) and climate variability on the water balance components from 1990 to 2020. We applied the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) coupled with remote sensing retrievals of actual...

Characterizing the thermal effects of vegetation on urban surface temperature

Vegetation is important for urban heat mitigation. The cooling intensity of vegetation is affected by background climate and urban design. How to evaluate vegetation cooling efficiency under different climate conditions is still an issue open to discussion. In this study, a normalized indicator of urban vegetation cooling efficiency (NVCE) is...

Anisotropy parameterization development and evaluation for glacier surface albedo retrieval from satellite observations

Glacier albedo determines the net shortwave radiation absorbed at the glacier surface and plays a crucial role in glacier energy and mass balance. Remote sensing techniques are efficient means to retrieve glacier surface albedo over large and inaccessible areas and to study its variability. However, corrections of anisotropic reflectance of...

A semi-empirical method for estimating complete surface temperature from radiometric surface temperature, a study in Hong Kong city

The complete surface temperature (T_c) in urban areas, defined as the mean temperature of the total active surface area, is an important variable in urban micro-climate research, specifically for assessment of the urban surface energy balance. Since most vertically-oriented building facets are not observed by a nadir-viewing remote...

Comparing thresholding with machine learning classifiers for mapping complex water

Small reservoirs play an important role in mining, industries, and agriculture, but storage levels or stage changes are very dynamic. Accurate and up-to-date maps of surface water storage and distribution are invaluable for informing decisions relating to water security, flood monitoring, and water resources management. Satellite remote...

Detecting the response of irrigation water management to climate by remote sensing monitoring of evapotranspiration

This study on a large irrigation scheme in Morocco addressed a two-fold question: (a) does the local water management authority adapt water releases to atmospheric water demand ET₀-P? and (b) does crop actual evapotranspiration respond to inter- and intra-annual variability in water releases? We have evaluated the inter-annual...

A spectral unmixing method with ensemble estimation of endmembers: Application to flood mapping in the Caprivi floodplain

The Caprivi basin in Namibia has been affected by severe flooding in recent years resulting in deaths, displacements and destruction of infrastructure. The negative consequences of these floods have emphasized the need for timely, accurate and objective information about the extent and location of affected areas. Due to the high temporal...