AirSWOT Radar Water Level Profiles for Wax Lake Outlet, 2015

NASA's Pre-Delta-X campaign dataset provides water level profiles derived from AirSWOT Ka-band radar interferometry. Measurements were taken in May 2015 along the Wax Lake Outlet within the Mississippi River Delta floodplain in Louisiana. This Level 3 dataset contains numerous profiles of water-surface elevation and associated uncertainty.

Use Cases

• Calibrating and validating hydrological models for river delta systems using water-surface elevation profiles.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of water level and stage within a complex floodplain environment.
• Assessing the performance of near-nadir wide-swath Ka-band radar interferometry for inland water measurement.

Strengths

• Data originates from a NASA airborne campaign (Pre-Delta-X), ensuring a controlled collection methodology.
• Provides direct measurements of water-surface elevation and quantified uncertainty for each profile.
• Focuses on a specific, ecologically significant region within the Mississippi River Delta.

Limitations

• Conflicting metadata: one platform lists a last updated date of 2026-03 12, while another lists 2015-05-11, creating uncertainty about data currency.
• Key structural details like row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Airborne near-nadir wide-swath Ka-band radar interferometry (AirSWOT).

Time Range

2015-05

Freshness

2026-03-12 22:33:51.096667

Geography

Atchafalaya Basin, Wax Lake Outlet, Southern Louisiana, USA, within the Mississippi River Delta floodplain.