This project is exploring peripheral Great Salt Lake wetland water levels and available American white pelican foraging habitat. Essentially I'll be creating a water level model using Great Salt Lake bathymetry data and estimating water levels around the lake. From those water level estimates, I'm going to try to calculate how much wetland area is submerged at a given water level and is therefore available for pelicans to feed in.
To answer my project questions, I will need the following data:
Water level data from the water level gauges around the Great Salt Lake
Any other water level data I can find from the Great Salt Lake or the peripheral wetlands (not necessary, but helpful)
A bathymetry model of the Great Salt Lake lake bed and the surrounding area
A wetland delineation shapefile covering the Great Salt Lake and peripheral wetlands to delineate wetland boundaries of interest
Spatial extent maximum:
Latitude
40.2781° to 41.8735°
Longitude
-114.2356° to -111.7605°
Resolution:
I'll need the highest spatial resolution data available for this project, because minor lake bed elevation fluctuations may affect whether an area is submerged or not. The highest available resolution appears to be a 30m x 30m raster.
Temporal resolution doesn't need to be extremely fine - in fact, anything finer than daily water levels are cumbersome. Daily or weekly data are adequate.
Coordinate system:
Data will be in WGS 84
Data are from the following sources:
Water level data
U.S. Geological Survey. “National Water Information System Data Available on the World Wide Web (USGS Water Data for the Nation).” USGS Current Conditions for USGS 10010100 GREAT SALT LAKE NEAR SALINE, UT, 15 Nov. 2020, waterdata.usgs.gov/ut/nwis/uv/?site_no=10010100.
Format: table (.csv)
Bathymetry model:
Tarboton, David. “Great Salt Lake Bathymetry: CUAHSI HydroShare.” Great Salt Lake Bathymetry | CUAHSI HydroShare, HydroShare, 28 Oct. 2017, www.hydroshare.org/resource/582060f00f6b443bb26e896426d9f62a.
Format: raster (.tif)
Wetland delineation data:
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; National Wetlands Inventory; National Standards and Support Team. “National Wetlands Inventory Website.” National Wetlands Inventory, 2020, www.fws.gov/wetlands/.
Format: shapefile (.shp)
All data are downloaded and are ready to be analyzed at this point in time.
Spatial resolution and vertical accuracy are concerns with the bathymetry raster. Ultra fine-scale resolution would be preferable to model small elevation changes within the Great Salt Lake wetlands, but the raster has a resolution of 30m x 30m. Additionally, I will need to explore the vertical accuracy of the raster to ensure my model is estimating correct water levels.
Water level data are assumed accurate, as they're measured by maintained gauges.
The wetland delineation shapefile may not accurately reflect recent changes in wetland boundaries due to water fluctuations and Great Salt Lake desiccation.