Combining remote sensing, novel in-situ temperature sensing techniques and ecosystem models for improved environmental risk assessment related to shallow groundwater

Recent UK flood events have highlighted that flooding is not just caused by rivers overbanking, but also due to rising groundwater. Shallow groundwater also plays a key role in the occurrence of landslides, in agricultural productivity and the status of groundwater-dependent ecosystems. In all these situations, high-resolution maps of groundwater levels (GWLs) would significantly improve management and risk assessment.

Spatial mapping of GWLs could be achieved using thermal remote sensing, involving thermal infrared (TIR) sensors mounted onboard satellites, airplanes or drones. This is because the land surface temperature signal is strongly affected by evapotranspiration, which will be sustained for longer in the presence of shallow groundwater. However, surface temperature is also affected by radiation, and direct heat exchange between the land surface, atmosphere and soil. Hence, the relationship between surface temperature and GWLs is complex, and this is why detection of shallow GWLs using TIR has been underexploited.

In this project you will assess the suitability of TIR remote sensing, taking advantage of recent technological advances in thermal monitoring (e.g. high-resolution infrared cameras mounted on unmanned airborne vehicles), as well as state-of-the-art Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Transfer (SVAT) models. SVAT models link sub-surface processes with above-ground land surface fluxes and can help disentangle the various contributions to surface temperature. In addition, the project will combine TIR with Synthetic Aperture Radar to obtain crucial estimates of soil moisture content and vegetation density. The study will be linked with ongoing work within BGS on assessing risk in relation to ecosystem status, flood management and landslides, and will involve interaction with users of the project outputs, such as environment regulators.

The project will be co-supervised by Kevin White (Reading), John Bloomfield (British Geological Survey), and David Macdonald (British Geological Survey).

The full project description is available here http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/nercdtp/home/available/desc/SC201507_Verhoef.pdf