WEBVTT FILE

1
00:00:08.700 --> 00:00:12.540
River deltas and wetlands play a
pivotal role in protecting

2
00:00:12.540 --> 00:00:15.180
coastlines from storm surge and
rising seas.

3
00:00:15.300 --> 00:00:18.390
But as sea level continues to
rise instead of an inputs are

4
00:00:18.390 --> 00:00:22.950
reduced, these vast areas of
land are drowning. NASA's

5
00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:26.100
Delta-X mission set out to
determine which parts of land

6
00:00:26.100 --> 00:00:29.340
will survive and continue to
grow, which parts will be lost

7
00:00:29.370 --> 00:00:30.150
and why.

8
00:00:30.540 --> 00:00:33.780
Specifically, the mission is
looking to answer the question

9
00:00:33.810 --> 00:00:37.740
what are the hydrological and
ecological processes responsible

10
00:00:37.740 --> 00:00:41.400
for both the resilience and
vulnerability of river deltas to

11
00:00:41.400 --> 00:00:44.100
relative sea level rise or RSLR?

12
00:00:45.390 --> 00:00:49.200
To do this, field teams deploy
by land and boat to measure the

13
00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:53.070
flow of water and the sediment
transport across the region.

14
00:00:58.620 --> 00:01:01.830
An airborne campaign also sets
out to take large scale

15
00:01:01.830 --> 00:01:05.250
measurements to estimate water
and sediment flow as well as

16
00:01:05.250 --> 00:01:06.510
vegetation production.

17
00:01:06.990 --> 00:01:09.720
Planes outfitted with three
different instruments will

18
00:01:09.720 --> 00:01:14.100
collect this important data via
remote sensing. One of the

19
00:01:14.100 --> 00:01:17.520
instruments is NASA's airborne
visible infrared imaging

20
00:01:17.520 --> 00:01:23.550
spectrometer, or AVIRIS-NG. It's
flying on a King Air B200

21
00:01:23.550 --> 00:01:24.270
aircraft.

22
00:01:24.900 --> 00:01:27.870
I helped build the instrument
and it's an Imaging Spectrometer

23
00:01:27.960 --> 00:01:31.050
as we fly along, we've imaged a
swath and every pixel of the

24
00:01:31.050 --> 00:01:34.350
swath, we collect the full
reflectance spectrum. And with

25
00:01:34.350 --> 00:01:36.930
our instrument we can see into
the water, we can get the

26
00:01:36.960 --> 00:01:40.500
chemical composition of the
vegetation and get a whole lot

27
00:01:40.500 --> 00:01:44.610
of very important environmental
factors. With each image, we

28
00:01:44.610 --> 00:01:47.190
rent airplanes with a hole in
the floor. That's the whole big

29
00:01:47.190 --> 00:01:50.730
deal about this type of a survey
aircraft, the goes into end

30
00:01:50.730 --> 00:01:54.420
where the light goes into that's
reflected off of the surfaces on

31
00:01:54.420 --> 00:01:57.240
the bottom of the plane. And
there's a little narrow glass

32
00:01:57.270 --> 00:02:01.170
window where we look out of with
the instrument when we see like

33
00:02:01.170 --> 00:02:05.310
a slit projected on the ground
so that as the plane goes along,

34
00:02:05.610 --> 00:02:10.410
that slit builds up a map or an
image of what's going on. We're

35
00:02:10.410 --> 00:02:13.830
looking at the instrument
Imaging Spectrometer vacuum

36
00:02:13.830 --> 00:02:18.900
vessel optics, CRO coolers, we
will have an operator up in this

37
00:02:18.900 --> 00:02:24.810
seat, and we will be looking at
the screen and we have another

38
00:02:24.810 --> 00:02:27.480
scene over here for a person
that's working the navigation

39
00:02:27.480 --> 00:02:32.190
system that helps us get to show
the pilots where we want to be

40
00:02:32.190 --> 00:02:35.970
flying over the on the ground.
And they have a screen that goes

41
00:02:35.970 --> 00:02:39.660
up on the windshield that they
can look at to see where our

42
00:02:39.660 --> 00:02:42.720
target is relative to the plane
so they can steer the plane

43
00:02:43.200 --> 00:02:45.750
cleanly and accurately over the
for the target site.

44
00:02:46.710 --> 00:02:51.030
The UAVSAR instrument or the
uninhabited Aerial Vehicle

45
00:02:51.030 --> 00:02:54.480
synthetic aperture radar will
measure how land features have

46
00:02:54.480 --> 00:02:55.770
changed over time.

47
00:02:56.430 --> 00:03:00.030
The AirSWOT instrument focuses
on the natural properties of our

48
00:03:00.030 --> 00:03:03.360
surfaces, gathering data for
things like water elevation

49
00:03:03.360 --> 00:03:05.400
mapping, and surface
characterization.

50
00:03:06.380 --> 00:03:09.890
Together these measurements make
up models that scientists can

51
00:03:09.890 --> 00:03:14.450
then use to understand and
forecast land gain or loss in

52
00:03:14.450 --> 00:03:15.080
deltas.