The Feasibility of Monitoring Great Plains Playa Inundation with the Sentinel 2A/B Satellites for Ecological and Hydrological Applications

Abstract

Playas are ecologically and hydrologically important ephemeral wetlands found in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Urbanization, changes in agricultural land use and irrigation practices, and climate change all threaten playas. While variations in playa inundation on the Great Plains of North America have been previously analyzed by satellite using annual and decadal time scales, no study to our knowledge has monitored the Great Plains playa inundation area using sub-monthly time scales. Thousands of playas smaller than ~50 m in diameter, which were not previously identified by the Landsat satellite platform, can now be captured by higher resolution satellite data. In this preliminary study, we demonstrate monitoring spatial and temporal changes in the playa water inundation area on sub-monthly times scales between September 2018 and February 2019 over a region in West Texas, USA, using 10 m spatial resolution imagery from the Sentinel-2A/B satellites. We also demonstrate the feasibility and potential benefits of using the Sentinel-2A/B satellite retrievals, in combination with precipitation and evaporation data, to monitor playas for environmental, ecological, groundwater recharge, and hydrological applications.