Remote Monitoring of Selected Ground-Water Dominated Lakes in the Nebraska Sand Hills

Authors

David C. Gosselin, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Donald C. Rundquist, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Stuart K. McFeeters, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Date of this Version

January 2000

Comments

Published in Journal of the American Water Resources Association 36:5 (2000), pp. 1039–1051; doi 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2000.tb05708.x Copyright © 2000 American Water Resources Association; published by John Wiley & Sons Co. Used by permission. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119049597/abstract

Abstract

The Landsat-Multispectral Scanner (MSS) data were used to measure lake area fluctuations (1972-1989) for 130 groundwater dominated lakes in the Western Lakes Region of the Nebraska Sand Hills. In general, the pattern shown in lake area hydrographs was similar to that for in-situ lake elevations. In-situ lake-elevation data verify that remote monitoring of surface- area fluctuations, even at relatively coarse spatial resolution, is not only practical and useful, but also it elucidates the hydrologic characteristics of groundwater-dominated lakes of the Sand Hills. The apparent differences in behavior between lakes in the northern and southern portions of the study area may be related to both their location in the regional ground water system and the substantial local hydrologic complexity.