Understanding Aquatic Communities Through Remote Sensing

Rosenberg Institute Seminar Series

Aquatic macrophyte communities play an important part in the Sacramento-San JoaquinDelta ecology. Part of the lower food web, they are ecosystem engineers that impede recreational and commercial use of the Delta waterways and cost millions of dollars in herbicide control programs every year. Remote sensing offers a synoptic view of the distribution and coverage of submerged and floating vegetation forms that are increasingly prevalent in the Delta, allowing us to study them in a geospatial context. Since 2004,we have used remote sensing technology to monitor these invasive species and study their distribution patterns. Airborne imaging spectroscopy data was acquired in summer of 2004-2008 and fall of 2014-2017. Analysis and classification of this data helped us understand how aquatic macrophyte communities grow and persist in the ecosystem, how they interact with each other, and how they impact ecosystem processes and the physical environment.

Speaker: Dr. Shruti Khanna, California Department of Fish and Wildlife