Seasonal drought analysis of Aksehir Lake with temporal combined sentinel data between 2017 and 2021 spring and autumn

Abstract

The threat of drought has been felt almost worldwide in recent years. It is critical to determine the causes of drought and how seasonal changes affect it. Additionally, it is necessary to determine the speed and impact area of drought, monitor drought areas, and attempt to find solutions against drought. With the developing satellite sensing systems, remote sensing methods are being used to investigate topics such as the increase and extent of drought, uncontrolled water consumption in agricultural activities, and the effects of unnatural pollutants on freshwater resources such as lakes and rivers. Using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite data to monitor changes in water bodies is a relatively new area of study in remote sensing. The spatial extent and seasonal change (spring and autumn) of droughts between 2017 and 2021 in Aksehir Lake were determined from Sentinel-1A SAR satellite data, and the Normalized Differential Water Index (NDWI) was calculated using Sentinel-2A optical satellite data and Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) in this research. In addition, a different approach was applied to determine the change of wetland boundaries more accurately by converting the linear Sigma0 band to the decibel (dB) band and applying a non-linear 3 x 3 maximum filter to the dB band to Sentinel-1A data. Consequently, it has been established that Aksehir Lake, which used to have wetlands during the spring seasons but began to dry up in the autumn seasons, had completely dried up in both periods in 2021.