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Full catalog/InundationMap_YkFlats_PeaceAth_1901
InundationMap_YkFlats_PeaceAth_1901·v1·dataset

Where wetlands are flooded in Alaska and Canada (2017-2019)

ABoVE: Wetland Inundation Coverage at Yukon Flats, AK and PA Delta, Canada, 2017-2019
hydrosphere NASA ORNL_CLOUD Level 3 multiple
In plain English

What it measures. Maps showing where wetlands were flooded across the Yukon Flats in Alaska and the Peace-Athabasca Delta in Canada, refreshed every 12 days through the warm season for 2017 to 2019. It also shows how often each spot stayed underwater, distinguishing open water, floating plants, and flooded vegetation.

How it's made. Made from Sentinel-1 radar satellites, which can see water through clouds and darkness, with the radar signal sorted into water types using a step-by-step classification, at roughly 10-meter detail.

How & where you'd use it. Helps scientists and land managers track changing wetland flooding, important for wildlife habitat, water management, and understanding northern ecosystems.

What's measured

TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE › SURFACE WATER › SURFACE WATER PROCESSES/MEASUREMENTS › INUNDATIONBIOSPHERE › ECOSYSTEMS › AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS › WETLANDS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2017-05-21 → 2019-10-26
  • Measured bySentinel-1A (SAR) · Sentinel-2A (Sentinel-2 MSI) · Sentinel-2B (Sentinel-2 MSI) · Sentinel-1B (SAR)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-146.43, 58.2464, -110.915, 66.8107
  • Formatsmultiple
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Follow rainfall, floods and surface-water extent
  • Track soil moisture and the onset of drought
  • Monitor lakes, rivers and groundwater storage
Official description

This dataset provides time series of wetland inundation coverage maps and corresponding inundation frequency maps at ~10-meter resolution estimated every 12 days during the free-water period (May to October) for the years 2017-2019 over the Yukon Flats (YK) portion of the Yukon River, Alaska, USA, and the Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD), Alberta, Canada. Wetland inundation coverage was determined by a two-step modified decision-tree classification approach that first used Sentinel-1 C-band SAR to identify likely inundated areas across a study site and was followed by a decision-tree classification step with C-band SAR backscatter statistics thresholds to distinguish among different inundation components. The result of this process was five classes for each inundation map, namely Open Water (OW), Floating Plants (FP), Emergent Plants (EP), Flooded Vegetation (FV), and Dry Land (DRY). After all the individual (every 12 days) inundation coverage maps were derived for a study site, they were generalized to two-class maps which maintained only inundation status. These generalized maps were then stacked and summarized to produce the inundation frequency map for the site. In these maps, higher values signify more frequently inundated areas, with the maximum value representing permanently inundated pixels. The Sentinel-1 inundation mapping capability demonstrated here provided frequent, broad-scale mapping of different wetland inundation components. Integration of such products with process-based methane (CH4) models would improve simulation of CH4 emissions from wetlands.

Get the data

inundationmap_ykflats_peaceath_1901_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="InundationMap_YkFlats_PeaceAth_1901",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ORNL_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.