Landsat - A satellite surface water divining rod
A DAM (Detection and Mapping) package is developed to provide accurate up-to-date economical and properly formatted maps of surface water using Landsat earth resources satellite digital data in order to detect and locate unrecorded water impoundments. The operational procedure is discussed in terms of data acquisition, establishment of the control network, specification of map characteristics, and generation of maps. Preliminary evaluations essentially indicate that the DAM package can be readily used by personnel unfamiliar with computer processing of remote sensing data, that no false detections are encountered, and that detection accuracy of surface water impoundments greater than 4 hectares is between 95-98%. However, terrain shadows present a problem in mountainous areas at low sun angles. A total cost of less than 15 cents per sq mile to compile the inventory is noted.