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At least 19 records

Remote Sensing-Driven Hydrodynamic Modeling in Data-Scarce Regions: Integrating ICESat-2, Sentinel-2, SWOT and Re-analysis Models for Coastal Monitoring

Hydrodynamic models in coastal and estuarine systems are typically constrained by sparse bathymetry, boundary, and validation data, especially in regions where field campaigns are costly or impractical. Here we develop and test a fully satellite-driven framework for hydrodynamic modeling in South Africa’s Langebaan Lagoon without using any local in situ measurements. Bathymetry is derived by training multispectral Sentinel-2 reflectance against ICESat-2 ATL24 photon-derived depths using an XGBoost model optimized with Bayesian search. The final satellite-derived bathymetry reproduces independent ATL24 points with RMSE = 0.45 m and R 2 = 0.97. This bathymetry was used in a depth-averaged Delft3D Flexible Mesh model driven at the open boundary by TPXO tidal harmonics and by ERA5 winds. We validate modeled water surface elevation against 16 SWOT low-rate (250 m, unsmoothed) passes in 2023. SWOT–model comparisons yield an overall RMSE of 0.11 m and R 2 = 0.61, with typical point differences <0.10 m (∼7% of the 1.5 m tidal range), and showed consistent spatial gradients in water level from the offshore boundary, through Saldanha Bay, and into the lagoon. At the offshore boundary, TPXO and SWOT sea surface heights agree closely (R 2 = 0.86). A simple phase adjustment of ∼26,min between TPXO and SWOT lowers the RMSE from 0.18,m to 0.11,m, showing that phase offset accounts for some of the discrepancy, with additional errors likely linked to non-tidal signals. Our results demonstrate that combining passive optical, photon-counting LiDAR, radar interferometry, and global tidal/atmospheric models enables robust, transferrable hydrodynamic modeling in data-scarce coastal systems, offering a cost-effective pathway for monitoring.

ICESat-2↗

Application of GRACE for Monitoring Groundwater in Data Scarce Regions

In the United States, groundwater storage is somewhat well monitored (spatial and temporal data gaps notwithstanding) and abundant data are freely and easily accessible. Outside of the U.S., groundwater often is not monitored systematically and where it is the data are rarely centralized and made available. Since 2002 the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission has delivered gravity field observations which have been used to infer variations in total terrestrial water storage, including groundwater, at regional to continental scales. Challenges to using GRACE for groundwater monitoring include its relatively coarse spatial and temporal resolutions, its inability to differentiate groundwater from other types of water on and under the land surface, and typical 2-3 month data latency. Data assimilation can be used to overcome these challenges, but uncertainty in the results remains and is difficult to quantify without independent observations. Nevertheless, the results are preferable to the alternative - no data at all- and GRACE has already revealed groundwater variability and trends in regions where only anecdotal evidence existed previously.

Rodell, Matt↗

An Experimental System for a Global Flood Prediction: From Satellite Precipitation Data to a Flood Inundation Map

Floods impact more people globally than any other type of natural disaster. It has been established by experience that the most effective means to reduce the property damage and life loss caused by floods is the development of flood early warning systems. However, advances for such a system have been constrained by the difficulty in estimating rainfall continuously over space (catchment-. national-, continental-. or even global-scale areas) and time (hourly to daily). Particularly, insufficient in situ data, long delay in data transmission and absence of real-time data sharing agreements in many trans-boundary basins hamper the development of a real-time system at the regional to global scale. In many countries around the world, particularly in the tropics where rainfall and flooding co-exist in abundance, satellite-based precipitation estimation may be the best source of rainfall data for those data scarce (ungauged) areas and trans-boundary basins. Satellite remote sensing data acquired and processed in real time can now provide the space-time information on rainfall fluxes needed to monitor severe flood events around the world. This can be achieved by integrating the satellite-derived forcing data with hydrological models, which can be parameterized by a tailored geospatial database. An example that is a key to this progress is NASA's contribution to the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), launched in November 1997. Hence, in an effort to evolve toward a more hydrologically-relevant flood alert system, this talk articulates a module-structured framework for quasi-global flood potential naming, that is 'up to date' with the state of the art on satellite rainfall estimation and the improved geospatial datasets. The system is modular in design with the flexibility that permits changes in the model structure and in the choice of components. Four major components included in the system are: 1) multi-satellite precipitation estimation; 2) characterization of land surface including digital elevation from NASA SRTM, topography-derived hydrologic parameters such as flood direction. flow accumulation, basin, and river network etc.; 3) spatially distributed hydrological models to infiltrate rainfall and route overland runoff; and 4) an implementation interface to relay thc input data to the models and display the flood inundation results to the users and decision-makers. Early results appear reasonable in terms of location and frequency of events. Case studies of this experimental system are evaluated with surface runoff data and other river monitoring systems. such as Dartmouth Flood Observatory's "Surface Water Watch" array of river reaches that are measured daily via other satellite remote sensing data. A major outcome of this progress will be the availability of a global overview of flood alerts that should consequently improve the performance of Decision Support System. We expect these developments in utilization of satellite remote sensing technology to offer a practical solution to the challenge of building a cost-effective early warning system for data scarce and under-developed areas.

Adler, Robert↗

Use of Very High-Resolution Optical Data for Landslide Mapping and Susceptibility Analysis Along the Karnali Highway, Nepal

The Karnali highway is a vital transport link and the only primary roadway that connects the remote Karnali region to the lowlands in Mid-Western Nepal. Every year there are reports of landslides blocking the road, making this area largely inaccessible. However, little effort has focused on systematically identifying landslides and landslide-prone areas along this highway. In this study, landslides were mapped with an object-based approach from very high-resolution optical satellite imagery obtained by the DigitalGlobe constellation in 2012 and PlanetScope in 2018. Landslides ranging from 10 to 30,496 sq.m were detected within a 3 km buffer along the highway. Most of the landslides were located at lower elevations (between 500–1500 m) and on steep south-facing slopes. Landslides tended to cluster closer to the highway, near drainage channels and away from faults. Landslides were also most prevalent within the Kuncha Formation geologic class, and the forested and agricultural land cover classes. A susceptibility map was then created using a logistic regression methodology to highlight patterns in landslide activity. The landslide susceptibility map showed a good prediction rate with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.90. A total of 33% of the study arealies in high/very high susceptibility zones. The map highlighted the lower elevated areas between Bangesimal and Manma towns with the Kuncha Formation geologic class as being the most hazardous. The banks of the Karnali River, its tributaries and areas near the highway were also highly susceptible to landslides. The results highlight the potential of very high-resolution optical imagery for documenting detailed spatial information on landslide occurrence, which enables susceptibility assessment in remote and data scarce regions such as the Karnali highway.

Pukar Amatya↗

Tonlé Sap Food Security and Agriculture: Evaluating the Effects of Land Use and Hydrological Change on Ecosystem Vitality using Remotely-Sensed Data in the Tonlé Sap Lake Basin

Tonlé Sap Lake, the largest lake in Southeast Asia, is a critical source of fish and freshwater resources for the region. The health of this freshwater system is under pressure from accelerating dam construction, intensifying agriculture, deforestation, and changing climate patterns, forcing tradeoffs between immediate food security and the long-term vitality and productivity of the ecosystem. Efficient freshwater system monitoring is crucial to navigating these challenges. In collaboration with Conservation International, the Cambodian Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, and the Tonlé Sap Authority, we developed and tested remotely-sensed proxies for sub-indicators of the Freshwater Health Index (FHI), which is typically calculated using in situ datasets. We used landcover datasets derived from Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), PROBA-V Vegetation sensor (VGT), Sentinel-2 Multispectral Imager (MSI), Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), and Envisat Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) as inputs to calculate land cover naturalness and bank modification. Additionally, we created a lake-level time series using a collection of altimetry data sources to estimate deviation from natural flow. We observed a decrease in landcover naturalness and a breakdown in the volume and regularity of annual lake levels from 2000-2020, reflecting increased pressure on water supply and agricultural productivity. At least 8% of forested areas in the basin were lost and rice harvest intensity increased over the course of the study period. These results will help our partners make informed decisions regarding freshwater management. Furthermore, our remotely-sensed FHI analysis can be replicated in other regions, providing decision makers with a snapshot of freshwater health in data-scarce environments.

Marco Vallejos↗

Soil Moisture Estimation in South Asia via Assimilation of SMAP Retrievals

A soil moisture retrieval assimilation framework is implemented across South Asia in an attempt to improve regional soil moisture estimation as well as to provide a consistent regional soil moisture dataset. This study aims to improve the spatiotemporal variability of soil moisture estimates by assimilating Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) near-surface soil moisture retrievals into a land surface model. The Noah-MP (v4.0.1) land surface model is run within the NASA Land Information System software framework to model regional land surface processes. NASA Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA2) and Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals (IMERG) provide the meteorological boundary conditions to the land surface model. Assimilation is carried out using both cumulative distribution function (CDF)-corrected (DA-CDF) and uncorrected SMAP retrievals (DA-NoCDF). CDF matching is applied to correct the statistical moments of the SMAP soil moisture retrieval relative to the land surface model. Comparison of assimilated and model-only soil moisture estimates with publicly available in situ measurements highlights the relative improvement in soil moisture estimates by assimilating SMAP retrievals. Across the Tibetan Plateau, DA-NoCDF reduced the mean bias and RMSE by 8.4 % and 9.4 %, even though assimilation only occurred during less than 10 % of the study period due to frozen (or partially frozen) soil conditions. The best goodness-of-fit statistics were achieved for the IMERG DA-NoCDF soil moisture experiment. The general lack of publicly available in situ measurements across irrigated areas limited a domain-wide direct model validation. However, comparison with regional irrigation patterns suggested correction of biases associated with an unmodeled hydrologic phenomenon (i.e., anthropogenic influence via irrigation) as a result of SMAP soil moisture retrieval assimilation. The greatest sensitivity to assimilation was observed in cropland areas. Improvements in soil moisture potentially translate into improved spatiotemporal patterns of modeled evapotranspiration, although limited influence from soil moisture assimilation was observed on modeled processes within the carbon cycle such as gross primary production. Improvement in fine-scale modeled estimates by assimilating coarse-scale retrievals highlights the potential of this approach for soil moisture estimation over data-scarce regions.

Jawairia Ahmad↗

Utilizing Earth Observations to Understand Landscape Patterns and Assist in Wildlife Management in Iona National Park, Angola

Following the end of the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002), human habitation in Iona National Park has grown exponentially, as has the livestock population. An ongoing drought beginning in 2017 has brought people, livestock, and wildlife into increasing competition for resources within the park. This study used Earth observation data, primarily Landsat and Sentinel imagery, to examine landscape trends to improve wildlife preservation approaches in Iona National Park, Angola. In collaboration with the NGO African Parks, we developed a robust land use and land cover (LULC) classification model using remote sensing data to augment sparse ground-based data in this arid land region. We used Google Earth Engine and a random forest classifier to map vegetation types, water bodies, and potential wildlife habitats. This analysis resulted in a high spatial resolution LULC time-series between 1984-2023, highlighting critical periods of socioecological change over the past 40 years. These results increased the partner’s ability to make scientifically grounded decisions about resource allocation and conservation priorities. This analysis supports the feasibility of applying remote sensing techniques coupled with machine learning models in dry regions, where standard survey methods are frequently limited by accessibility and resource availability. However, we identified limitations in ground-truth data and the difficulty of recognizing certain vegetation types in arid areas. Despite these limitations, the study demonstrated Earth observations' ability to transform wildlife management techniques in distant and data-scarce locations, providing a reproducible foundation for similar ecosystems around the world.

Emmanuel Aklie↗

A New Compendium of Unsteady Aerodynamic Test Cases for CFD: Summary of AVT WG-003 Activities

With the continuous progress in hardware and numerical schemes, Computational Unsteady Aerodynamics (CUA), that is, the application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to unsteady flowfields, is slowly finding its way as a useful and reliable tool (turbulence and transition modeling permitting) in the aircraft, helicopter, engine and missile design and development process. Before a specific code may be used with confidence it is essential to validate its capability to describe the physics of the flow correctly, or at least to the level of approximation required, for which purpose a comparison with accurate experimental data is needed. Unsteady wind tunnel testing is difficult and expensive; two factors which dramatically limit the number of organizations with the capability and/or resources to perform it. Thus, unsteady experimental data is scarce, often classified and scattered in diverse documents. Additionally, access to the reports does not necessarily assure access to the data itself. The collaborative effort described in this paper was conceived with the aim of collecting into a single easily accessible document as much quality data as possible. The idea is not new. In the early 80's NATO's AGARD (Advisory Group for Aerospace Research & Development) Structures and Material Panel (SMP) produced AGARD Report No. 702 "Compendium of Unsteady Aerodynamic Measurements", which has found and continues to find extensive use within the CUA Community. In 1995 AGARD's Fluid Dynamics Panel (FDP) decided to update and expand the former database with new geometries and physical phenomena, and launched Working Group WG-22 on "Validation Data for Computational Unsteady Aerodynamic Codes". Shortly afterwards AGARD was reorganized as the RTO (Research and Technology Organization) and the WG was renamed as AVT (Applied Vehicle Technolology) WG-003. Contributions were received from AEDC, BAe, DLR, DERA, Glasgow University, IAR, NAL, NASA, NLR, and ONERA. The final publication with the results of the exercise is expected in the second part of 1999. The aim of the present paper is to announce and present the new database to the Aeroelasticity community. It is also intended to identify, together with one of the groups of end users it targets, deficiencies in the compendium that should be addressed by means of new wind tunnel tests or by obtaining access to additionally existing data.

Ruiz-Calavera, Luis P.↗

Force Limited Vibration Testing

This slide presentation reviews the concept and applications of Force Limited Vibration Testing. The goal of vibration testing of aerospace hardware is to identify problems that would result in flight failures. The commonly used aerospace vibration tests uses artificially high shaker forces and responses at the resonance frequencies of the test item. It has become common to limit the acceleration responses in the test to those predicted for the flight. This requires an analysis of the acceleration response, and requires placing accelerometers on the test item. With the advent of piezoelectric gages it has become possible to improve vibration testing. The basic equations have are reviewed. Force limits are analogous and complementary to the acceleration specifications used in conventional vibration testing. Just as the acceleration specification is the frequency spectrum envelope of the in-flight acceleration at the interface between the test item and flight mounting structure, the force limit is the envelope of the in-flight force at the interface . In force limited vibration tests, both the acceleration and force specifications are needed, and the force specification is generally based on and proportional to the acceleration specification. Therefore, force limiting does not compensate for errors in the development of the acceleration specification, e.g., too much conservatism or the lack thereof. These errors will carry over into the force specification. Since in-flight vibratory force data are scarce, force limits are often derived from coupled system analyses and impedance information obtained from measurements or finite element models (FEM). Fortunately, data on the interface forces between systems and components are now available from system acoustic and vibration tests of development test models and from a few flight experiments. Semi-empirical methods of predicting force limits are currently being developed on the basis of the limited flight and system test data. A simple two degree of freedom system is shown and the governing equations for basic force limiting results for this system are reviewed. The design and results of the shuttle vibration forces (SVF) experiments are reviewed. The Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) also was used to validate force limiting. Test instrumentation and supporting equipment are reviewed including piezo-electric force transducers, signal processing and conditioning systems, test fixtures, and vibration controller systems. Several examples of force limited vibration testing are presented with some results.

random vibration testing↗

Whole rock major element chemistry of KREEP basalt clasts in lunar breccia 15205: Implications for the petrogenesis of volcanic KREEP basalts

KREEP basalts are a major component of soils and regolith at the Apollo 15 site. Their origin is controversial: both endogenous (volcanic) and exogenous (impact melt) processes have been proposed, but it is now generally agreed that KREEP basalts are volcanic rocks derived from the nearby Apennine Bench formation. Because most pristine KREEP basalts are found only as small clasts in polymict lunar breccias, reliable chemical data are scarce. The primary aim of this study is to characterize the range in chemical composition of pristine KREEP basalt, and to use these data to decipher the petrogenesis of these unique volcanic rocks.

Vetter, Scott K.↗

Effect of shocks on film cooling of a full scale turbojet exhaust nozzle having an external expansion surface

Cooling is one of the critical technologies for efficient design of exhaust nozzles, especially for the developing technology of nonaxisymmetric (2D) nozzles for future aircraft applications. Several promising 2D nozzle designs have external expansion surfaces which need to be cooled. Engine data are scarce, however, on nozzle cooling effectiveness in the supersonic flow environment (with shocks) that exists along external expansion surfaces. This paper will present experimental film cooling data obtained during exploratory testing with an axisymmetric plug nozzle having external expansion and installed on an afterburning turbojet engine in an altitude test facility. The data obtained shows that the shocks and local hot gas stream conditions have a marked effect on film cooling effectiveness. An existing film cooling correlation is adequate at some operating conditions but inadequate at other conditions such as in separated flow regions resulting from shock-boundary-layer interactions.

Straight, D. M.↗

Radiative property investigation

A detailed formulation of radiative heat transfer problems involving the use of bidirectional reflectance is discussed. Except for very simple systems this formulation is very intricate. For this reason and the fact that bidirectional data are scarce, such a formulation is not in common use. However, with the development of the digital computer there have been numerical methods developed for detailed radiative investigations using the bidirectional reflectance. Since computations using bidirectional reflectance are coming into use for spacecraft radiative studies, it is necessary to have reflectance data on the materials involved. Materials that are frequently studied are coatings which are used in controlling the thermal environment of spacecrafts. This study is primarily concerned with the bidirectional reflectance of zinc oxide which is one constituent commonly used for coatings.

Scott, R. L., Jr.↗

Evaluation of Production Cross Sections of Li, Be, B in CR

Accurate evaluation of the production cross section of light elements is important for models of cosmic ray (CR) propagation, galactic chemical evolution, and cosmological studies. However, the experimental spallation cross section data are scarce and often unavailable to CR community while semi-empirical systematics are frequently wrong by a significant factor. Running sophisticated nuclear codes is not an option of choice for everyone either. We use the Los Alamos versions of the Quark-Gluon String Model code LAQGSM and the improved Cascade-Exciton Model code CEM2k together with all available data from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory (LANL) nuclear database to produce evaluated production cross sections of isotopes of Li, Be, and B suitable for astrophysical applications. The LAQGSM and CEM2k models have been shown to reproduce well nuclear reactions and hadronic data in the range 0.01-800 GeV/nucleon.

Moskalenko, I. V.↗

A preliminary study of the impact of the ERS 1 C band scatterometer wind data on the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts global data assimilation system

A preliminary assessment of the impact of the ERS 1 scatterometer wind data on the current European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts analysis and forecast system has been carried out. Although the scatterometer data results in changes to the analyses and forecasts, there is no consistent improvement or degradation. Our results are based on comparing analyses and forecasts from assimilation cycles. The two sets of analyses are very similar except for the low level wind fields over the ocean. Impacts on the analyzed wind fields are greater over the southern ocean, where other data are scarce. For the most part the mass field increments are too small to balance the wind increments. The effect of the nonlinear normal mode initialization on the analysis differences is quite small, but we observe that the differences tend to wash out in the subsequent 6-hour forecast. In the Northern Hemisphere, analysis differences are very small, except directly at the scatterometer locations. Forecast comparisons reveal large differences in the Southern Hemisphere after 72 hours. Notable differences in the Northern Hemisphere do not appear until late in the forecast. Overall, however, the Southern Hemisphere impacts are neutral. The experiments described are preliminary in several respects. We expect these data to ultimately prove useful for global data assimilation.

Hoffman, Ross N.↗

Aerothermodynamic Environments Definition for the Mars Science Laboratory Entry Capsule

An overview of the aerothermodynamic environments definition status is presented for the Mars Science Laboratory entry vehicle. The environments are based on Navier-Stokes flowfield simulations on a candidate aeroshell geometry and worst-case entry heating trajectories. Uncertainties for the flowfield predictions are based primarily on available ground data since Mars flight data are scarce. The forebody aerothermodynamics analysis focuses on boundary layer transition and turbulent heating augmentation. Turbulent transition is expected prior to peak heating, a first for Mars entry, resulting in augmented heat flux and shear stress at the same heatshield location. Afterbody computations are also shown with and without interference effects of reaction control system thruster plumes. Including uncertainties, analysis predicts that the heatshield may experience peaks of 225 W/sq cm for turbulent heat flux, 0.32 atm for stagnation pressure, and 400 Pa for turbulent shear stress. The afterbody heat flux without thruster plume interference is predicted to be 7 W/sq cm on the backshell and 10 W/sq cm on the parachute cover. If the reaction control jets are fired near peak dynamic pressure, the heat flux at localized areas could reach as high as 76 W/sq cm on the backshell and 38 W/sq cm on the parachute cover, including uncertainties. The final flight environments used for hardware design will be updated for any changes in the aeroshell configuration, heating design trajectories, or uncertainties.

Edquist, Karl T.↗

Effect of Preconditioning and Soldering on Failures of Chip Tantalum Capacitors

Soldering of molded case tantalum capacitors can result in damage to Ta205 dielectric and first turn-on failures due to thermo-mechanical stresses caused by CTE mismatch between materials used in the capacitors. It is also known that presence of moisture might cause damage to plastic cases due to the pop-corning effect. However, there are only scarce literature data on the effect of moisture content on the probability of post-soldering electrical failures. In this work, that is based on a case history, different groups of similar types of CWR tantalum capacitors from two lots were prepared for soldering by bake, moisture saturation, and longterm storage at room conditions. Results of the testing showed that both factors: initial quality of the lot, and preconditioning affect the probability of failures. Baking before soldering was shown to be effective to prevent failures even in lots susceptible to pop-corning damage. Mechanism of failures is discussed and recommendations for pre-soldering bake are suggested based on analysis of moisture characteristics of materials used in the capacitors' design.

multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC)↗

A Fast Implementation of the ISOCLUS Algorithm

Unsupervised clustering is a fundamental tool in numerous image processing and remote sensing applications. For example, unsupervised clustering is often used to obtain vegetation maps of an area of interest. This approach is useful when reliable training data are either scarce or expensive, and when relatively little a priori information about the data is available. Unsupervised clustering methods play a significant role in the pursuit of unsupervised classification. One of the most popular and widely used clustering schemes for remote sensing applications is the ISOCLUS algorithm, which is based on the ISODATA method. The algorithm is given a set of n data points (or samples) in d-dimensional space, an integer k indicating the initial number of clusters, and a number of additional parameters. The general goal is to compute a set of cluster centers in d-space. Although there is no specific optimization criterion, the algorithm is similar in spirit to the well known k-means clustering method in which the objective is to minimize the average squared distance of each point to its nearest center, called the average distortion. One significant feature of ISOCLUS over k-means is that clusters may be merged or split, and so the final number of clusters may be different from the number k supplied as part of the input. This algorithm will be described in later in this paper. The ISOCLUS algorithm can run very slowly, particularly on large data sets. Given its wide use in remote sensing, its efficient computation is an important goal. We have developed a fast implementation of the ISOCLUS algorithm. Our improvement is based on a recent acceleration to the k-means algorithm, the filtering algorithm, by Kanungo et al.. They showed that, by storing the data in a kd-tree, it was possible to significantly reduce the running time of k-means. We have adapted this method for the ISOCLUS algorithm. For technical reasons, which are explained later, it is necessary to make a minor modification to the ISOCLUS specification. We provide empirical evidence, on both synthetic and Landsat image data sets, that our algorithm's performance is essentially the same as that of ISOCLUS, but with significantly lower running times. We show that our algorithm runs from 3 to 30 times faster than a straightforward implementation of ISOCLUS. Our adaptation of the filtering algorithm involves the efficient computation of a number of cluster statistics that are needed for ISOCLUS, but not for k-means.

Memarsadeghi, Nargess↗