For two University of Washington researchers, the real test came as they walked across a barren-looking field.
They were on the Columbia Plateau with two state wetland ecologists, searching for a 1-acre body of water identified and mapped for the first time using a new method they developed. But when the group arrived at the expected coordinates, map in hand, the soil was dry and cracked and there wasn’t a wetland in sight.
Then, one of the ecologists sunk a shovel into the ground, looked at the characteristics of the soil, and put everyone’s worries to rest: The wetland was there, all right — it just happened to be in a dry phase.
“I remember getting goosebumps when I realized our method worked,” said L. Monika Moskal, an associate professor in the UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.
This fine-tuned knowledge is the result of a new approach to better understand the hydrology of Eastern Washington’s wetlands. Now, researchers have an abundance of data about how these wetlands behave seasonally, which will also help monitor how they change as the climate warms.
“One of the things that makes wetlands so hard to study is their dynamic nature, the patterns of flooding and drying,” said Meghan Halabisky, a UW doctoral student in environmental and forest sciences and lead author of a new paper appearing in the May edition of Remote Sensing of Environment.
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