These data were compiled for monitoring riparian zone trends and changes in the Lower Colorado Delta as part of the Minute 139 of the 1944 Water Treaty between the United States and Mexico. The quality and quantity of the Delta’s riparian and aquatic ecosystems have been dramatically reduced over the past century, due largely to significant alterations to natural hydrologic and sediment regimes. The Minute 319 Agreement states that 130 million cubic meters of water was to be released during the spring of 2014. Water was released from Morelos Dam at the Northern International Border (NIB) near Yuma, Arizona, to the river’s delta in Mexico, allowing water to reach the Gulf of California for the first time in 13 years since 2000. Our study evaluated the short and long-term effects of environmental flows to hydrological processes in this borderland delta region. Because of the landscape changes and the anticipated impacts of added water in 2014 from Minute 319 water release, we explored remote sensing-based change analysis techniques and data to develop time series data of the Colorado River delta riparian corridor vegetation greenness and water use since the year 2000. We divided the river into 7 Reaches (R1..R7) to separate between the different land covers, management conditions, and general geospatial and hydrological conditions. We generated a variety of vegetation index, ET, anomalies, and trends using time series for all reaches combined then separately. Our data shows Landsat and MODIS derived EVI and EVI2 as well as time-series data of ETLandsat-EVI (mm/day), using a modified (EVI mod) equation, and ETMODIS-EVI with both EVI and then EVI 2 as the input variable to the ET algorithm were extremely consistent across sensors and methods and covaried well with vegetation, climate, and hydrological conditions of each reach and the whole region. These data represent statistics that were computed within each river reach (1-7) for the full timeseries period and for each raster dataset; Landsat 5 Continuity Data (Cont), Landsat 7 Continuity Data (Cont_L7), Landsat 7 NDVI data filtered using QA pixel information (Filter_L7), Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 NDVI data, filtered using QA and Long Term Average (Filter2), Landsat 7 NDVI data, filtered using QA and Long Term Average (Filter2_L7), Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 NDVI Data filtered using QA pixel information (Filtered), and Landsat 5 Continuity, Landsat 7 Continuity and Landsat 8 (MergeCont).

These data were compiled for monitoring riparian zone trends and changes in the Lower Colorado Delta as part of the Minute 139 of the 1944 Water Treaty between the United States and Mexico. The quality and quantity of the Delta’s riparian and aquatic ecosystems have been dramatically reduced over the past century, due largely to significant alterations to natural hydrologic and sediment regimes. The Minute 319 Agreement states that 130 million cubic meters of water was to be released during the spring of 2014. Water was released from Morelos Dam at the Northern International Border (NIB) near Yuma, Arizona, to the river’s delta in Mexico, allowing water to reach the Gulf of California for the first time in 13 years since 2000. Our study evaluated the short and long-term effects of environmental flows to hydrological processes in this borderland delta region. Because of the landscape changes and the anticipated impacts of added water in 2014 from Minute 319 water release, we explored remote sensing-based change analysis techniques and data to develop time series data of the Colorado River delta riparian corridor vegetation greenness and water use since the year 2000. We divided the river into 7 Reaches (R1..R7) to separate between the different land covers, management conditions, and general geospatial and hydrological conditions. We generated a variety of vegetation index, ET, anomalies, and trends using time series for all reaches combined then separately. Our data shows Landsat and MODIS derived EVI and EVI2 as well as time-series data of ETLandsat-EVI (mm/day), using a modified (EVI mod) equation, and ETMODIS-EVI with both EVI and then EVI 2 as the input variable to the ET algorithm were extremely consistent across sensors and methods and covaried well with vegetation, climate, and hydrological conditions of each reach and the whole region.

These data were compiled for monitoring riparian zone trends and changes in the Lower Colorado Delta as part of the Minute 139 of the 1944 Water Treaty between the United States and Mexico. The quality and quantity of the Delta’s riparian and aquatic ecosystems have been dramatically reduced over the past century, due largely to significant alterations to natural hydrologic and sediment regimes. The Minute 319 Agreement states that 130 million cubic meters of water was to be released during the spring of 2014. Water was released from Morelos Dam at the Northern International Border (NIB) near Yuma, Arizona, to the river’s delta in Mexico, allowing water to reach the Gulf of California for the first time in 13 years since 2000. Our study evaluated the short and long-term effects of environmental flows to hydrological processes in this borderland delta region. Because of the landscape changes and the anticipated impacts of added water in 2014 from Minute 319 water release, we explored remote sensing-based change analysis techniques and data to develop time series data of the Colorado River delta riparian corridor vegetation greenness and water use since the year 2000. We divided the river into 7 Reaches (R1..R7) to separate between the different land covers, management conditions, and general geospatial and hydrological conditions. We generated a variety of vegetation index, ET, anomalies, and trends using time series for all reaches combined then separately. Our data shows Landsat and MODIS derived EVI and EVI2 as well as time-series data of ETLandsat-EVI (mm/day), using a modified (EVI mod) equation, and ETMODIS-EVI with both EVI and then EVI 2 as the input variable to the ET algorithm were extremely consistent across sensors and methods and covaried well with vegetation, climate, and hydrological conditions of each reach and the whole region.

These data were compiled for monitoring riparian zone trends and changes in the Lower Colorado Delta as part of the Minute 139 of the 1944 Water Treaty between the United States and Mexico. The quality and quantity of the Delta’s riparian and aquatic ecosystems have been dramatically reduced over the past century, due largely to significant alterations to natural hydrologic and sediment regimes. The Minute 319 Agreement states that 130 million cubic meters of water was to be released during the spring of 2014. Water was released from Morelos Dam at the Northern International Border (NIB) near Yuma, Arizona, to the river’s delta in Mexico, allowing water to reach the Gulf of California for the first time in 13 years since 2000. Our study evaluated the short and long-term effects of environmental flows to hydrological processes in this borderland delta region. Because of the landscape changes and the anticipated impacts of added water in 2014 from Minute 319 water release, we explored remote sensing-based change analysis techniques and data to develop time series data of the Colorado River delta riparian corridor vegetation greenness and water use since the year 2000. We divided the river into 7 Reaches (R1..R7) to separate between the different land covers, management conditions, and general geospatial and hydrological conditions. We generated a variety of vegetation index, ET, anomalies, and trends using time series for all reaches combined then separately. Our data shows Landsat and MODIS derived EVI and EVI2 as well as time-series data of ETLandsat-EVI (mm/day), using a modified (EVI mod) equation, and ETMODIS-EVI with both EVI and then EVI 2 as the input variable to the ET algorithm were extremely consistent across sensors and methods and covaried well with vegetation, climate, and hydrological conditions of each reach and the whole region.

These spatially explicit Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and evapotranspiration (ET) map derived from time series Landsat images, maps, and associated ancillary data were compiled as part of ongoing research aimed at quantifying the riparian vegetation greenness and water use in the lower Colorado River Delta in Mexico. In order to create trend and anomaly maps that characterize these ecosystems, both EVI and ET from-Landsat-OLI were processed over time and space along seven pre-defined reaches that capture different natural states and management conditions. We used EVI from the Landsat operational land imager (OLI) sensor (30 m) as an input to our ET algorithm that was previously based on coarser resolution EVI from the NASA MODIS sensor (250 m). The work explored how to improve the spatial resolution of the ET estimates of riparian plant water use. OLI 30 m images provide better characterization and performance over these rather narrow riparian corridors and thus provide better estimation of riparian-area greenness and plant water use at this scale. To capture the trends and changes over time needed for estimating ET, which is dependent upon the EVI input data, we used a simple differencing technique that compares two annual average growing season EVI and ET cycles (limited to May-October). The EVI and ET anomaly maps capture how the corridor vegetation health responds to both natural and anthropogenic changes. We limited this study to the full OLI record (2013-2019) since we were interested in understanding the response to Minute 319 pulse flow of 2014. The difference maps are an ideal tool for capturing how the released water impacted vegetation and its water use immediately after the release and over long time. The Minute 319 pulse flow science team in collaboration with the University of Arizona have developed a data processing system to support this effort with focus on understanding how remote sensing data analysis techniques can aid in assessing the riparian corridor response to these natural and anthropogenic stressors. All data associated with this project were acquired from the LP-DAAC and pre-processed to remove and capture issues prior to further analyses (see below). Preprocessing involves reprojection to a common map system, masking to only retain the area of interest, quality analysis to discard poor data, and then value addition to generate the EVI and difference maps as well as water use difference maps produced with ET-from-Landsat-EVI. The data acquisition and analysis were performed at the University of Arizona VIP lab (vip.arizona.edu) using their large Linux cluster of computing and storage resources. A mix of off the shelf software and specialized in-house tools were used to carry the different steps and analyses.

These spatially explicit Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and evapotranspiration (ET) map derived from time series Landsat images, maps, and associated ancillary data were compiled as part of ongoing research aimed at quantifying the riparian vegetation greenness and water use in the lower Colorado River Delta in Mexico. In order to create trend and anomaly maps that characterize these ecosystems, both EVI and ET from-Landsat-OLI were processed over time and space along seven pre-defined reaches that capture different natural states and management conditions. We used EVI from the Landsat operational land imager (OLI) sensor (30 m) as an input to our ET algorithm that was previously based on coarser resolution EVI from the NASA MODIS sensor (250 m). The work explored how to improve the spatial resolution of the ET estimates of riparian plant water use. OLI 30 m images provide better characterization and performance over these rather narrow riparian corridors and thus provide better estimation of riparian-area greenness and plant water use at this scale. To capture the trends and changes over time needed for estimating ET, which is dependent upon the EVI input data, we used a simple differencing technique that compares two annual average growing season EVI and ET cycles (limited to May-October). The EVI and ET anomaly maps capture how the corridor vegetation health responds to both natural and anthropogenic changes. We limited this study to the full OLI record (2013-2019) since we were interested in understanding the response to Minute 319 pulse flow of 2014. The difference maps are an ideal tool for capturing how the released water impacted vegetation and its water use immediately after the release and over long time. The Minute 319 pulse flow science team in collaboration with the University of Arizona have developed a data processing system to support this effort with focus on understanding how remote sensing data analysis techniques can aid in assessing the riparian corridor response to these natural and anthropogenic stressors. All data associated with this project were acquired from the LP-DAAC and pre-processed to remove and capture issues prior to further analyses (see below). Preprocessing involves reprojection to a common map system, masking to only retain the area of interest, quality analysis to discard poor data, and then value addition to generate the EVI and difference maps as well as water use difference maps produced with ET-from-Landsat-EVI. The data acquisition and analysis were performed at the University of Arizona VIP lab (vip.arizona.edu) using their large Linux cluster of computing and storage resources. A mix of off the shelf software and specialized in-house tools were used to carry the different steps and analyses.