Mississippi River Delta Water Quality from Airborne Imaging

Coastal Louisiana's Atchafalaya River and Terrebonne Basins are covered by this dataset, which provides high-resolution estimates of total suspended solids (TSS) concentration and turbidity derived from NASA's AVIRIS-NG airborne spectrometer. The data, produced by NASA's Delta-X campaign in 2021, uses a validated partial least squares regression model applied to imagery from spring and fall collections. It includes gridded water quality estimates and supporting regression coefficients to analyze sediment patterns influencing delta resilience.

Use Cases

• Modeling sediment accretion patterns at a mesoscale (1 ha) to predict land loss/gain in deltaic floodplains.
• Validating satellite-derived water quality products using high-resolution airborne imagery and in-situ measurements.
• Analyzing seasonal variation in TSS (mg L-1) and turbidity (FNU) between spring and fall 2021 conditions.
• Applying the provided PLSR regression coefficients to estimate water quality from other AVIRIS-NG spectral data.
• Using the included binary cloud and water masks to filter imagery for clear-sky water pixel analysis.

Strengths

• Data is derived from NASA's AVIRIS-NG instrument, providing high spatial resolution of 3.8 to 5.4 meters.
• Algorithms were developed and validated using paired in-situ field measurements of TSS and turbidity.
• Coverage includes two distinct seasonal campaigns from March-April and August 2021.
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA EarthData signals its importance and curation.

Limitations

• Sources conflict on the last update date: Data.gov lists 2026-03-13, while NASA EarthData lists 2021-09-24.
• Specific row counts, file sizes, and detailed column names are not provided by any source.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Estimates derived from Level 2 BRDF-corrected AVIRIS-NG imagery using PLSR models developed from in-situ field measurements.

Time Range

2021-03 2021-08

Freshness

2026-03-13 03:17:15.448336

Geography

Atchafalaya River and Terrebonne Basins of the Mississippi River Delta, coastal Louisiana, USA.