Presentation Title: Quantifying the Ephemeral: Tracking Wetland Inundation from Space to Understand Methane Dynamics

Advisor: Dr. Josh Gray, faculty fellow and associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources

Abstract: Small-scale, ephemeral inundation events drive substantial variability in wetland methane emissions. However, existing satellite products often lack the spatial and temporal resolution needed to capture these dynamics, particularly beneath dense forest canopies. This dissertation introduces a novel framework for mapping daily, high-resolution inundation across North Carolina’s coastal plain by integrating multi-sensor remote sensing, machine learning, hydrologic modeling, and data fusion. The resulting inundation maps reveal how dynamic inundation patterns influence estimates of methane emissions in a coastal forested wetland. Collectively, this framework and its findings demonstrate how advances in remote sensing and model integration can enhance the detection of short-term inundation and improve understanding of its role in regulating methane fluxes within the global carbon cycle.