High-mountain lakes possess tremendous ecological significance and contribute to the well-being of local mountain population and those living in adjacent lowland areas. Over the years, the structure and function of these ecosystems have experienced significant variations particularly due to the synergistic effects of climate stressors and human perturbations as well as reformed water consumption patterns. However, research on hydrology of mountain lakes remains focused on particular regions and related scientific perspectives on lake ecological shifts are still insufficient. Furthermore, the lack of strong nexus between scientists, stakeholders, and local community also promotes data gaps in mountain paleolimnology. Hence, it should be recognized that investigating the nexus between different stakeholders and global climate shifts as well as investigating the anthropogenic forcing factors in high-mountain lakes is fundamental for future hydrological studies. New proxy-based assessments and continuous, high-frequency limnological measurements will help improve spatiotemporal resolution and address existing data gaps in high-mountain limnology and paleolimnology.
The Pecora 22 conference occurred 24–27 October 2022 in Denver, Colorado. Hundreds of remote sensing experts, practitioners, and end users convened in the same location to share their research, tools, and experiences with the larger community. While session themes spanned a suite of scientific and engineering disciplines, a common thread across all sessions underscored how basic and applied scientists can use remote sensing to identify heterogeneous and dynamic environments at unprecedented spatial and temporal scales.
While the conference highlighted the breadth of remote sensing developments and applications, there were several sessions focusing on how remote sensing can further our understanding of water quantity and quality, bathymetry, as well as broadening participation in the remote sensing community.
Below, we highlight the topics discussed in five Pecora sessions that pertained to various facets of remote sensing of aquatic systems. By highlighting these sessions, we hope to further bridge remote sensing developments and limnology, thereby expediting cross-pollination between these fields and encourage members of the ASLO community to contact presenters regarding their specific talks (https://pecora22.org/program/).
Among the talks centered on remote sensing of aquatic systems, Pecora 22 hosted related sessions that focused specifically on cutting edge advances in remote sensing of water quality and quantity. Together, these sessions spanned a range of topics, including calibration and validation of aquatic surface reflectances, detection of chlorophyll and cyanobacterial presence within and across aquatic systems, use of altimetry data to evaluate surface water dynamics, and macroscale syntheses of lake water quality trends. A common goal of these sessions was to highlight the breadth of remote sensing developments that enable more accurate measurements of surface water dynamics and water quality constituents. Here, we detail the range of topics discussed within two of the sessions.
This session highlighted the half-century of Landsat satellite sensor observations and what these data have enabled with respect to developing, testing, and validating novel methodologies for studying aquatic ecosystems worldwide. Typically, these advances have included assessments of optically relevant water quality indicators—such as sediment, pigments, and dissolved organic matter—as well as water color. In many cases, the Landsat mission's data has also contributed to advance the characterization and mapping of coral and seagrass assemblages in marine environments, as well as the detection of surface algae and emergent vegetation in freshwater systems. Through Landsat's consistent multi-decadal thermal measurements and the derived high-quality surface temperature products, identifying trends and changes in water surface temperature due to climate variability and extreme weather patterns have also been made possible. Mirroring t