Monitoring of water surface area in Alaska’s Arctic National Parks: Update with 2019 data
Swanson DK. 2020. Monitoring of water surface area in Alaska’s Arctic National Parks: Update with 2019 data. Natural Resource Data Series. NPS/ARCN/NRDS—2020/1263. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
The area of lakes and ponds in the five National Park Service (NPS) units in northern Alaska from the 1980s to 2019 was summarized using data from Landsat satellite images. During the period for which annual Landsat data are available (2000-2019), most of the study area showed either declining water area or weak trends. The areas with rapidly declining water area had lakes of thermokarst origin in ice-rich permafrost, where sudden lake drainage events were common. The year 2019 had the most lake drainage events of any year in the period 2000-2019, with the great majority of lake drainages occurring in the lowlands of northern Bering Land Bridge National Preserve (BELA). Water surface area trends were computed here using both the new USGS dynamic water surface extent product and the existing ARCN water mapping protocol (a simpler method based on the same Landsat data). The two methods produced generally similar results. This report includes oblique aerial photographs of some newly drained lakes in BELA from 2019, and also photos and data that illustrate the growth of new vegetation on the beds of lakes that drained in 2018.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Swanson, David
- Date of Issue
- 2020-02
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- ARCN , BELA , CAKR , GAAR , KOVA , NOAT , NRSS