Using MODIS Land-Use/Land-Cover Data and Hydrological Modeling for Estimating Nutrient Concentrations - Vladimir J. Alarcon, William McAnally, Gary Ervin, Christopher Brooks

1. Using MODIS Land-Use/Land-
Cover Data and Hydrological
Modeling for Estimating Nutrient
Concentrations
Vladimir J. Alarcon, William McAnally,
Gary Ervin, Christopher Brooks
Northern Gulf Institute - GeoSystems Research Institute
Mississippi State University

2. Introduction
• United States land area: 0.9 billion hectares
– 20 percent is cropland, 26 percent permanent
grassland pasture and range land, and 28 percent
forest-use land.
– Land used for agricultural purposes in 1997 totaled
nearly 1.2 billion acres, over (52 percent of total
U.S. land area).
– Land use in the Southeastern United States is
predominantly covered by forests and agricultural
lands.
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

3. Introduction
• Water quality and flow regime influence the
ecological “health” of aquatic biota.
• In the Southeastern USA
– agricultural land use can comprise 50% or more of
land cover,
– sediment and nutrient runoff can seriously degrade
the ecological quality of aquatic environments.
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

4. Objectives
• Connecting hydrological processes to
biological system response studies in the
Upper Tombigbee watershed
– a hydrological model of the watershed was
developed.
– model development and its use for providing
stream flow, runoff, and nutrient concentrations to
establish relationships between stream
nutrients, runoff and discharge, and biotic data.
–.
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

5. Methods
• Study area:
– Upper Tombigbee
• located in Northwestern
Alabama and
Northeastern Mississippi,
USA
• Drains approximately
1390325 ha
• main contributor of flow
to the Mobile River
• approximate average
stream flow of 169 m3/s.
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

6. Methods
• Topographical data:
– USGS DEM,
• 3 arc-second (1:250,000-
scale, 300 m)
• A seamless topographical
– “mosaicking” several
DEMs that covered the
area.
• ArcInfo (GRID) was used
to fill grid cells with no-
data values (con,
focalmax, and focalmean)
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

7. Methods
• Land Use data:
– Two land use datasets
• USGS GIRAS (1986)
• NASA MODIS
MOD12Q1 (2001-2004)
– The MODIS MOD12 Q1
data was geo-processed
for the dataset to be
consistent with the USGS
GIRAS dataset (land use
categories).
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

8. Methods/Results
• Biological Data and Watershed Delineation:
– Geo-locations of field-collected data on fish and
mussel were used to delineate the watershed
under study.
• Produced sub-watersheds contained at least four
sampled species per sub-watershed
• Only samples collected during 2002-2004 and 1977-
1982 were used for these analyses, to coincide with
the GIRAS (1986) and MODIS (2001-2004) land use
data.
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

9. Methods
• Hydrological Modeling
– Hydrological Simulation Program Fortran
(HSPF).
• Simulation of non-point source watershed hydrology
and water quality.
• Time-series of meteorological/water-quality data,
land use and topographical data are used to estimate
stream flow hydrographs and polluto-graphs.
• The model simulates interception, soil moisture,
surface runoff, interflow, base flow, snowpack depth
and water content, snowmelt, evapo-transpiration,
and ground-water recharge.
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

10. Methods
• Hydrological Modeling
– Nutrients (total nitrogen, TN, and total
phosphorus, TP) concentrations were estimated
using export coefficient for the region (*).
Land use category Average TP (kg/ha- Average TN (kg/ha-
year) year)
Row Crops 4.46 16.09
Non Row Crops 1.08 5.19
Forested 0.236 2.86
Urban 1.91 9.97
Pasture 1.5 8.65
Feedlot/Manure
Storage 300.7 3110.7
Mixed Agriculture 1.134 16.53
• (*) Lin, J.P.: Review of Published Export Coefficient and Event Mean Concentration (EMC) Data.
Wetlands Regulatory Assistance Program ERDC TN-WRAP-04-3, September (2004)
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

11. Results
• Land Use:
– From 1986 to 2003
agricultural lands
increased in almost
34%, forest lands
decreased in 16%.
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

12. Results
• Hydro modeling:
– Once an optimum watershed delineation was
achieved, HSPF was launched from within BASINS
to initialize the HSPF model application for the
Upper Tombigbee watershed. The initialization was
done for each of the land use datasets used in this
study (GIRAS and MODIS). Hence, two
hydrological models were set-up with two different
time periods of simulation: 1980-1990, and 1996-
2006.
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

13. Results
• Hydro modeling:
– From delineated watershed to HSPF model
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

14. Results
• Hydro modeling: Calibrated HSPF models
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

15. Results
• Nutrient estimation Total Phosphorus
Average Maximum 3 quartile
(selected sub-basins) Sub-basin
43
GIRAS
0.43
GIRAS
2.04
GIRAS
0.62
51 1.11 5.26 1.66
54 0.80 3.75 1.12
Average Maximum 3 quartile
Sub-basin MODIS MODIS MODIS
43 0.33 2.17 0.51
51 0.88 6.09 1.17
54 0.68 4.36 1.06
Total Nitrogen
Average Maximum 3 quartile
Sub-basin GIRAS GIRAS GIRAS
43 2.30 10.91 3.32
51 4.40 20.94 6.61
54 3.53 16.65 5.00
Average Maximum 3 quartile
Sub-basin MODIS MODIS MODIS
43 1.76 11.42 2.69
51 3.42 23.70 4.55
54 2.98 19.07 4.62
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

16. Results
• Nutrient estimation (all sub-basins)
TOTAL
PHOSPHORUS
% Change
(Mg/L) Average Maximum (Maximum)
GIRAS 1.23 5.66
MODIS 1.20 7.78 37
TOTAL
NITROGEN
% Change
(Mg/L) Average Maximum Maximum
GIRAS 4.72 21.58
MODIS 4.48 28.94 34
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

17. Conclusions
• Methodology for the introduction of land use data from
MODIS MOD 12Q1 into the Hydrological Program
Fortran (HSPF) is shown to be successful.
• MODIS datasets for 2001 through 2004 were geo-
processed and the results are shown to be consistent
with historical trends in land use for the region of
Upper Tombigbee watershed.
– From 1986 to 2003 agricultural lands increased in almost
34%, forest lands decreased in 16%, and range-land almost
quadruple in size.
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

18. Conclusions
• The watershed delineation process, guided by
geographical locations of sampling points of mollusk
and fish data, allowed the generation of sub-watersheds
that captured the distribution of biological data
throughout the study area.
• A comparison of nutrient concentration values for sub-
basins 43, 51, and 54 showed:
– Average and 3rd-quartile total phosphorus (TP)
concentrations do not differ greatly when using either land
use dataset.
– Only maximum concentrations showed to have increased
from 6% to 16%.
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan

19. Conclusions
• Similarly,
– Maximum total nitrogen (TN) concentrations were found to
have increased when using MODIS land use data (with
respect to TN concentrations estimated using GIRAS land use
data). Percent increments in TN concentration values are in-
between 5% to 15%.
• For all sub-basins:
– Maximum TP and TN concentrations seem to have increased
in about 37 % and 34%, respectively, from 1986 to 2003.
– This increase in maximum nutrient concentrations seems to
correlate with the 34% increase in agricultural areas in the
Upper Tombigbee watershed, from 1986 to 2003.
ICCSA 2010 Conference, March 23-26, 2010, Fukuoka, Japan