Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Using Remote Sensing And Machine Learning To Locate Groundwater Discharge To Salmon-Bearing Streams, Mary E. Gerlach, Kai C. Rains, Edgar J. Guerrón-Orejuela, William J. Kleindl, Joni Downs, Shawn M. Landry, Mark C. Rains

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

We hypothesized topographic features alone could be used to locate groundwater discharge, but only where diagnostic topographic signatures could first be identified through the use of limited field observations and geologic data. We built a geodatabase from geologic and topographic data, with the geologic data only covering ~40% of the study area and topographic data derived from airborne LiDAR covering the entire study area. We identified two types of groundwater discharge: shallow hillslope groundwater discharge, commonly manifested as diffuse seeps, and aquifer-outcrop groundwater discharge, commonly manifested as springs. We developed multistep manual procedures that allowed us to accurately predict the …