Delta-X In-situ Water Surface Elevation for Mississippi River Delta Floodplain

Forty-nine pressure transducers recorded water level every 15-20 minutes at sites in the Atchafalaya and Terrebonne basins of Louisiana during 2021. These in-situ measurements, converted to absolute water surface elevation, were collected to calibrate and validate remote sensing data and hydrodynamic models for the NASA Delta-X campaign. The dataset includes a summary file for all 65 planned sites, though data from 16 sites were lost.

Use Cases

• Calibrating airborne remote sensing water extent maps from the Delta-X campaign using in-situ elevation points.
• Validating hydrodynamic model predictions of water surface elevation across a complex delta floodplain.
• Analyzing spatial and temporal water level variations between two major basins (Atchafalaya and Terrebonne).
• Studying sensor performance and data loss factors in challenging wetland deployment environments.

Strengths

• Data includes absolute water surface elevation converted to a consistent vertical datum (NAVD88 GEOID12B).
• Measurements have a high temporal resolution, recorded every 15-20 minutes.
• Covers 49 distinct geographic locations across two major basins.
• Includes supplementary GNSS boat survey data for spatial validation.

Limitations

• Significant data loss occurred, with 16 out of 65 initial sites providing no usable data.
• Platforms disagree on the last update date (2021-09-27 vs. 2026-03-13), creating uncertainty about versioning.
• Specific column names and total row counts are not provided in the available metadata.

Provenance

Source

NASA Delta-X campaign, with data hosted by ORNL_CLOUD.

Collection Method

In-situ measurements using commercial pressure transducers (Solinst Levelogger), with absolute elevation determined via AirSWOT or survey-grade GNSS.

Time Range

2021

Freshness

2026-03 -13 03:10:28.646649

Geography

Atchafalaya and Terrebonne basins within the Mississippi River Delta floodplain, Louisiana, USA.