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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1973

Stream network analysis from orbital and suborbital imagery, Colorado River Basin, Texas

The author has identified the following significant results. Orbital SL-2 imagery (earth terrain camera S-190B), received September 5, 1973, was subjected to quantitative network analysis and compared to 7.5 minute topographic mapping (scale: 1/24,000) and U.S.D.A. conventional black and white aerial photography (scale: 1/22,200). Results can only be considered suggestive because detail on the SL-2 imagery was badly obscured by heavy cloud cover. The upper Bee Creek basin was chosen for analysis because it appeared in a relatively cloud-free portion of the orbital imagery. Drainage maps were drawn from the three sources digitized into a computer-compatible format, and analyzed by the WATER system computer program. Even at its small scale (1/172,000) and with bad haze the orbital photo showed much drainage detail. The contour-like character of the Glen Rose Formation's resistant limestone units allowed channel definition. The errors in pattern recognition can be attributed to local areas of dense vegetation and to other areas of very high albedo caused by surficial exposure of caliche. The latter effect caused particular difficulty in the determination of drainage divides.

Baker, V. R.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Use of the LANDSAT-2 Data Collection System in the Colorado River Basin Weather Modification Program

The author has identified the following significant results. The LANDSAT data collection system has proven itself to be a valuable tool for control of cloud seeding operations and for verification of weather forecasts. These platforms have proven to be reliable weather resistant units suitable for the collection of hydrometeorological data from remote severe weather environments. The detailed design of the wind speed and direction system and the wire-wrapping of the logic boards were completed.

Kahan, A. M.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Use of the LANDSAT-2 data collection system in the Colorado River basin weather modification program

The author has identified the following significant results. Many types of environmental sensors can be interfaced to the LANDSAT DCP. The LANDSAT field installations proved to be remarkably reliable, weather resistant, and cost effective units able to relay high quality data in near real time. The wind averaging system demonstrated the feasibility of transmitting averaged wind data, stored over a period of several hours, from a remote site.

Kahan, A. M.↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Small Warm Tributary Provides Prespawning Resources for Colorado Pikeminnow in a Cold Dam-Regulated River

Abstract Riverine habitat mosaics, including tributaries, are an important reason the Green River subbasin supports the largest remaining population of federally endangered Colorado Pikeminnow Ptychocheilus lucius in the Colorado River Basin. Upstream Colorado Pikeminnow distribution is limited by Flaming Gorge Dam and few typically occurred in the reach immediately downstream of the dam, which is the reach most affected by thermal and hydrologic alterations. However, fish captures and passive integrated transponder (PIT) antenna sampling of previously tagged individuals from 2011 to 2021 revealed seasonal congregations of up to 75 Colorado Pikeminnow annually in the mouth of Vermillion Creek, a small tributary in the regulated reach. Approximately 11% (N = 93 individuals) of the entire 2017–2018 Green River basin population were encountered in Vermillion Creek over the 11-y study, an underestimate of use considering that untagged fish were not detected by antennas. Colorado Pikeminnow used Vermillion Creek primarily when Green River spring flows from Flaming Gorge Dam were high and cold in May through mid-June when the confluence was a large, deep backwater warmer than the main channel and supported forage fishes. Intra-annual encounters revealed seasonal residence times for individual Colorado Pikeminnow up to 91 d, and multiple inter-annual encounters indicated site fidelity. Frequent detections of individual Colorado Pikeminnow in a Yampa River spawning area soon after their detections in Vermillion Creek indicate this tributary may be an important resource for reproductive adults. The intensive and basin-wide PIT tagging and detection program for Colorado Pikeminnow enhanced our understanding of the importance of small habitat nodes such as Vermillion Creek in the Green River drainage network. Understanding and protecting these seasonally available riverine habitat mosaics used for prespawning conditioning may assist with recovery of Colorado Pikeminnow.

Biodiversity & Conservation↗
DOE OSTI2021

Hydrologic Evaluation of Smallmouth Bass Spawning Sites in the Upper Green River Using LiDAR

The smallmouth bass has been considered one of the most problematic invasive species in the upper Colorado River basin. As a predator of larval fish and juveniles, this nonnative species is an impediment to conservation efforts for endangered fish species of the Colorado River basin including Colorado pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus lucius), razorback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus), humpback chub (Gila cypha), and bonytail chub (Gila elegans). Several measures have been recommended to control smallmouth bass populations to conserve the endangered fish species. Among these measures are efforts to control flows during the spawning season to disrupt smallmouth bass reproduction. Previous work has suggested that smallmouth bass spawning in areas of the Green River could be inhibited during higher flows from the Flaming Gorge Dam due to lack of suitable habitat. Little research has been conducted to evaluate an optimal range of flow increases (“flow spikes”) needed to disrupt smallmouth bass reproduction in the Green River. Current research proposals to evaluate the effectiveness of flow spikes on controlling smallmouth bass reproduction target post-spawning flows of 4,500 cfs, maintained for three days, to inundate side-channel spawning habitats. In this report, we present results of a topographic study of smallmouth bass spawning sites in the upper Green River to characterize flow levels needed to inundate spawning habitats. This study used remotely sensed Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data collected along the entire Green River, including channel margins and floodplain areas, to model water surface elevations and flow spikes needed to connect and inundate smallmouth bass spawning sites.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Investigating spatial variability of aerosol, cloud condensation nuclei, and ice nucleating particles in mountainous terrain

The ASR-supported Surface Atmosphere Integrated field Laboratory (SAIL) in the East River Watershed (ERW) of the Upper Colorado River Basin in southwestern Colorado ran from fall 2021 to spring 2023. Two monitoring sites were deployed in the East River Watershed as part of SAIL. The two sites were the Aerosol Observation System (AOS) located on Crested Butte Ski Mountain, and the ARM Mobile Facility (AMF-2), located at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of aerosols in complex, mountainous terrain, Handix Scientific deployed SAIL-Net, a distributed network of six measurement nodes spanning the domain of the SAIL research area from October 2021 to July 2023. Each node measured aerosol particles between 140 nm and 3.4 μm in diameter using a small particle counter (POPS, (Gao et al., 2016)), CNN using a miniature CCN counter (CloudPuck), and INP using the Time-Resolved Aerosol Filter Sampler (TRAPS, Creamean et al. (2018)). Our approach was similar to other studies that aimed to better characterize and understand aerosols and gas-phase pollutants using networks of lower-cost sensors (Caubel et al., 2019; Kelly et al., 2021; Asher et al., 2022). Such studies have identified neighborhood-level variations in pollutant concentrations (Schneider et al., 2017; Popoola et al., 2018; Caubel et al., 2019). Small-scale variations such as this are poorly represented in models and poorly measured by a single monitoring system (Caubel et al., 2019). Previous work has shown the representation error (the ability of measurements to represent a larger area) increases with complex orography, leading to decreases in model accuracy (Schutgens et al., 2017). The overall goal of SAIL-Net was to improve our understanding of the variability of aerosol in ERW, thus increasing our knowledge of aerosol-cloud interactions in this region and informing the usefulness of distributed networks of measurements for future studies.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Resolution matters when modeling climate change in headwaters of the Colorado River

The continued growth of Southwestern cities depends on reliable water export from Rocky Mountain headwaters, which provide ~85% of Colorado River Basin (CRB) streamflow. Despite being more sensitive to warming temperatures, alpine systems are simplified in the regional-scale models currently in use to plan for future water supply. We used an integrated hydrologic model that couples groundwater and surface water with snow and vegetation processes to examine the effect of topographic simplifications as a result of grid coarsening in a representative CRB headwater basin. High-resolution (100 m) simulations predicted headwater streamflow losses of 16% by 2050 while coarse-resolution (1 km) simulations predict only 12%, suggesting that regional-scale models (coarser than 1 km) likely overestimate future Colorado River Basin water supplies.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗