Arctic Wetland Inundation Maps from Sentinel-1 SAR, 2017-2019

Alaska and Canada's Yukon Flats and Peace-Athabasca Delta are covered by wetland inundation maps at ~10-meter resolution. NASA produced this time series, with maps estimated every 12 days during the free-water periods from May to October across 2017 to 2019. The dataset includes detailed coverage maps with five land/water classes and derived frequency maps showing how often areas were inundated.

Use Cases

• Calibrating and improving process-based methane (CH4) emission models for wetlands by integrating inundation frequency data.
• Monitoring seasonal and interannual changes in surface water extent for the classes Open Water, Floating Plants, Emergent Plants, and Flooded Vegetation.
• Analyzing the hydrological connectivity and permanence of water bodies in delta ecosystems using the inundation frequency maps.
• Validating other remote sensing products or hydrological models with high-resolution, SAR-derived inundation status over a three-year period.

Strengths

• Provides high spatial detail with ~10-meter resolution mapping for two large study areas.
• Offers frequent temporal observations with an estimate every 12 days during each year's free-water period.
• Uses a sophisticated, two-step modified decision-tree classification with Sentinel-1 C-band SAR backscatter statistics to distinguish five specific inundation components.

Limitations

• Conflicting metadata: one platform lists a last updated date of 2026-03-13, while another lists 2019-10 26, creating uncertainty about provenance updates.
• Core dataset metrics like row count, file size, and specific column names are not provided by any source.
• Temporal coverage is limited to the summer months (May-October) over three consecutive years.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Derived from a two-step modified decision-tree classification of Sentinel-1 C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data.

Time Range

2017-2019

Freshness

2026-03-13 20:11:38.366435

Geography

Yukon Flats (YK) portion of the Yukon River, Alaska, USA, and the Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD), Alberta, Canada.