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>> Charles Barrow: Located on the Rincon Mountains
in Southeastern Arizona, Saguaro National
Park East is home to unique ecosystems.
Part of the Sky Islands, the park is nestled
among a set of isolated mountain ranges that
vary in environment from arid desert to temperate
forest at higher elevations.
These Sky Islands experience snow in the winter
months.
However, precipitation patterns in the region
have shifted to rainfall rather than snow.
This shift has led to rising concern that
snowmelt will decrease to levels that cannot
sustain aquatic ecosystems through dry seasons.
This may pose a threat to aquatic species
and habitats, as well as to backcountry visitors
to the park who rely on streams and pools
for hydration.
The Southeastern Arizona Water Resources II
Team worked to create an overall assessment
and individual watershed assessments of snow
cover distribution in the Rincon and Santa
Catalina mountain ranges using NASA Earth
observations data products.
These assessments were then compared with
water presence data from our partners at the
National Park Service to determine the relationship
between snow cover and water presence.
Our partners at the National Park Service
do not currently use remote sensing to assess
snow cover.
>> Don Swann: Hi my name is Don Swann and
I'm a biologist at Saguaro National Park.
A lot of people don't realize , but at Saguaro
here we don't just have saguaros and cacti
but we also go up to high elevations where
we get snow every winter.
Unfortunately we don't collect data on snow
in the park it's a roadless wilderness, it's
very difficult to do.
And unfortunately we don't have really good
snow records for southern Arizona.
But it's very important for us, because snow
in the mountains means water in the desert
and water in the desert is very critical for
the survival of life here.
>> Charles Barrow: Our team worked to support
the National Park Service in filling this
information gap.
This project produced a Google Earth engine
decision support tool that incorporates NASA
Earth observations to enhance the current
decision making process.
This tool incorporated data from Landsat 5,
7 and 8 to analyze snow cover distribution
in the Rincon and Santa Catalina mountain
ranges.
In the future, the tool will also incorporate
Sentinel-2 data.
With this project, the team hopes to aid the
National Park Service in management decisions
now and in the future.
>> Don Swann: So it's been really exciting
to collaborate with NASA's DEVELOP team on
this project.
What we really need to do is to understand
better kind of what drives the dynamics of
streamflow in the park so that we can develop
management decisions for leopard frogs and
other critically important wildlife species
going forward into the future.
The tools that NASA has really allows us to
accomplish things we couldn't accomplish otherwise
and so these new technologies are really exciting
and we're looking forward to continuing the
relationship going forward.
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