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.