River Channel Change of Soda Butte Creek in Yellowstone National Park Ryan Kintz, Angelica Merlan, Casey Smith, Steven Fritz

Motivation To learn new techniques regarding the use of ArcGIS and ENVI in regards to showing the physical attributes of rivers To make some really cool maps of rivers in Yellowstone A good grade in Geography 176c

Objectives To assist Carl Legleiter in his analysis of the fluvial geomorphology of the Soda Butte Creek in Yellowstone To help him develop locational probability maps of the Soda Butte Creek

Objectives (cont.) “Ultimately, my objectives are to relate river channel change to long-term patterns and rates of bed material transfer and provide a larger-scale context for my geostatistical analysis of reach-scale patterns of morphology and hydraulics based on field data I have collected at specific sites.” - Carl Legleiter

Methods Georeferencing using ENVI and/or ArcGIS Identifying active channel features (where the river is) Assigning values to the raster output based on river location (making a mask of the river) Any pixel inside the active channel is assigned a 1, all other pixels are assigned a 0

Example of the Process of Making a Probability Map Graf, William

Methods (cont.) Weighting raster squares to create the probability map Overlay Sum weighted raster masks

Weight is based on the time in-between images divided by the whole time period available Thad A. Wasklewicza, Shawn Andersonb,1, Pin-Shou Liu

Example of Final Product – Showing the Mississippi River and its Meanders Example of Final Product from Wasklewicz et. Al

Data Sources Primary source of data is Carl Legleiter Sources include: National Park Service Archives (scanned photos) Yellowstone Ecological Research Center Earth Explorer (USGS)

Example of Satellite Imagery Used

Anticipated Problems Lack of experience using ENVI Time constraints of project and class schedule Matching up data so there is constant overlay Irregular time coverage of area large gaps in data

Likely Results These probability maps will give us more quantitative information of the dynamics of these river channels over time Legleiter, Carl

Impacts of Our Project Use by National Parks Service for study Use by National Parks Service to create riverbank protection to prevent undermining, and erosion of roads