Remote sensing data for assessing the equivalent water height (EWH) variety versus the level of forest disturbance in Central Siberia

Abstract

The forests of the permafrost zone of Central Siberia are influenced by natural and anthropogenic factors. Using remote sensing data, disturbed areas of forest cover are detected in the IR range as an anomalies of the surface temperature, which are significant for a long time (~20 years). Long-term changes in the temperature balance of the surface affect both the state of the lower soil horizons and the dynamics of the seasonally thawed layer, and, therefore, can affect the variation in the water balance and groundwater runoff. For the area of interest, a trend is shown of ~20% increase in the total area of disturbances per last two decades. A correlation analysis between large-scale thermal anomalies of the underlying surface and the series of gravimetric data on Equivalent Water Height (EWH) parameter is performed for the territory of the two river basins of the Nizhnyaya Tunguska and Podkamennaya Tunguska (Central Siberia). As a first approximation we estimated the relationship between the forest and on-ground cover disturbance and thermal anomalies of the underlying surface, which affect the seasonal dynamics of groundwater.