Colorado River Delta Project: River reach (1-7) full timeseries period statistics computed for Landsat 5, Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 data
Data for journal manuscript: Ecohydrological responses to surface flow across borders—Two decades of changes in vegetation greenness and water use in the riparian corridor of the Colorado River Delta
Dates
Publication Date
2020-08-06
Start Date
2000
End Date
2019
Citation
Nagler, P.L., Barreto-Muñoz, A., Jarchow, C.J., and Didan, K., 2020, Colorado River Delta Project: A compilation of vegetation indices, phenology assessment metrics, estimates of evapotranspiration and change maps for seven reaches of the delta's 150 km region, for nearly the last two decades: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P98PGDJ1.
Summary
These data were compiled for monitoring riparian zone trends and changes in the Lower Colorado Delta as part of the Minute 139 of the 1944 Water Treaty between the United States and Mexico. The quality and quantity of the Delta’s riparian and aquatic ecosystems have been dramatically reduced over the past century, due largely to significant alterations to natural hydrologic and sediment regimes. The Minute 319 Agreement states that 130 million cubic meters of water was to be released during the spring of 2014. Water was released from Morelos Dam at the Northern International Border (NIB) near Yuma, Arizona, to the river’s delta in Mexico, allowing water to reach the Gulf of California for the first time in 13 years since 2000. Our [...]
Summary
These data were compiled for monitoring riparian zone trends and changes in the Lower Colorado Delta as part of the Minute 139 of the 1944 Water Treaty between the United States and Mexico. The quality and quantity of the Delta’s riparian and aquatic ecosystems have been dramatically reduced over the past century, due largely to significant alterations to natural hydrologic and sediment regimes. The Minute 319 Agreement states that 130 million cubic meters of water was to be released during the spring of 2014. Water was released from Morelos Dam at the Northern International Border (NIB) near Yuma, Arizona, to the river’s delta in Mexico, allowing water to reach the Gulf of California for the first time in 13 years since 2000. Our study evaluated the short and long-term effects of environmental flows to hydrological processes in this borderland delta region. Because of the landscape changes and the anticipated impacts of added water in 2014 from Minute 319 water release, we explored remote sensing-based change analysis techniques and data to develop time series data of the Colorado River delta riparian corridor vegetation greenness and water use since the year 2000. We divided the river into 7 Reaches (R1..R7) to separate between the different land covers, management conditions, and general geospatial and hydrological conditions. We generated a variety of vegetation index, ET, anomalies, and trends using time series for all reaches combined then separately. Our data shows Landsat and MODIS derived EVI and EVI2 as well as time-series data of ETLandsat-EVI (mm/day), using a modified (EVI mod) equation, and ETMODIS-EVI with both EVI and then EVI 2 as the input variable to the ET algorithm were extremely consistent across sensors and methods and covaried well with vegetation, climate, and hydrological conditions of each reach and the whole region. These data represent statistics that were computed within each river reach (1-7) for the full timeseries period and for each raster dataset; Landsat 5 Continuity Data (Cont), Landsat 7 Continuity Data (Cont_L7), Landsat 7 NDVI data filtered using QA pixel information (Filter_L7), Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 NDVI data, filtered using QA and Long Term Average (Filter2), Landsat 7 NDVI data, filtered using QA and Long Term Average (Filter2_L7), Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 NDVI Data filtered using QA pixel information (Filtered), and Landsat 5 Continuity, Landsat 7 Continuity and Landsat 8 (MergeCont).
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ColoradoRiver_Charts_Metadata.xml Original FGDC Metadata
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ColoradoRiver_Charts.zip “Data & metadata”
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Related External Resources
Type: Online Link
Nagler, P.L., Barreto‐Muñoz, A., Borujeni, S.C., Jarchow, C.J., Gómez‐Sapiens, M.M., Nouri, H., Herrmann, S., and Didan, K., 2020, Ecohydrological responses to surface flow across borders—Two decades of changes in vegetation greenness and water use in the riparian corridor of the Colorado River Delta: Hydrological Processes, online, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13911.
These datasets were created to continue monitoring riparian zone trends and changes in the Lower Colorado Delta as part of the Minute 139 of the 1944 Water Treaty between the United States and Mexico. These datasets, while specific to the research questions addressed by this research (see Larger Work Citation), were designed to be accessible and used by others involved in research efforts on the lower Colorado River Delta. These maps capture a critical period of the Lower Colorado River riparian zone; in particular, as a pre- and post- pulse flow water release and provide a first synoptic view of how the vegetation responded and will continue to respond, and thus are very useful for follow up studies that may compare trends spatially to restoration areas, or temporally, either by comparing to prior years or more likely, by extending the performance period beyond the year 2019.
Rights
The author(s) of these data request that data users contact them regarding intended use and to assist with understanding limitations and interpretation. Unless otherwise stated, all data, metadata and related materials are considered to satisfy the quality standards relative to the purpose for which the data were collected. Although these data and associated metadata have been reviewed for accuracy and completeness and approved for release by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the display or utility of the data for other purposes, nor on all computer systems, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty.
