Emerging Tools to Identify and Assess Impacts to Groundwater-Dependent Ecosystems

Groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) are hotspots of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, but are increasingly threatened globally from multiple stressors including land conversion, water diversion and climate change. Protecting these valuable and vulnerable ecosystems has been challenging historically because they are difficult to identify and delineate due to their diverse composition and typically small area (e.g., narrow and irregular riparian zones). Recent advances in remote sensing, machine learning and big data statistical methods have greatly improved our ability to detect GDEs, which is a critical step toward protecting and restoring them. In this talk we summarize some emerging approaches, including novel integration of public datasets, phenological image analysis, dendroisotope series, standardized threshold analysis, and cloud computing. These approaches collectively provide a set of tools for mapping GDEs globally and in assessing their impacts from changes in climate and groundwater. We discuss applications of these tools to policy and management challenges, including the Clean Water Act (USA) and the EU Water Framework Directive.