Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Data release for the potential role of very high-resolution imagery to characterise lake, wetland and stream systems across the Prairie Pothole Region, United States

Published by U.S. Geological Survey | Department of the Interior | Catalog Last Checked: August 01, 2026 at 05:38 AM | Dataset Last Updated: August 20, 2020 at 12:00 AM
Aquatic features critical to watershed hydrology range widely in size from narrow, shallow streams to large, deep lakes. In this study we evaluated wetland, lake, and river systems across the Prairie Pothole Region to explore where pan-sharpened high-resolution (PSHR) imagery, relative to Landsat imagery, could provide additional data on surface water distribution and movement, missed by Landsat. We used the monthly Global Surface Water (GSW) Landsat product as well as surface water derived from Landsat imagery using a matched filtering algorithm (MF Landsat) to help consider how including partially inundated Landsat pixels as water influenced our findings. The PSHR outputs (and MF Landsat) were able to identify ~60-90% more surface water interactions between waterbodies, relative to the GSW Landsat product. However, regardless of Landsat source, by documenting many smaller (<0.2 ha), inundated wetlands, the PSHR outputs modified our interpretation of wetland size distribution across the Prairie Pothole Region.

Resources

2 resources available

Find Related Datasets

data.gov

An official website of the GSA's Technology Transformation Services

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov