Measuring floodplain inundation using diel amplitude of temperature

Abstract

Assessment of inundation patterns across large and remote floodplains is challenging and costly. Inexpensive loggers that record the damping of the diel amplitude of temperature (DAT) when submerged compared to overlying air can indirectly indicate inundation. We assessed the efficacy of this approach in tropical, subtropical, and temperate floodplains by comparing direct water level measurements using pressure transducers with the indirect indication of inundation ascertained from the DAT at the same location. The approach worked better in tropical than in subtropical and temperate floodplains. However, the relatively small DATs of air in humid and densely vegetated settings made estimation of inundation more challenging compared to the drier and less vegetated settings, where a large diel range of air temperature was markedly damped beneath the water. The indirect temperature approach must be calibrated for a particular ecosystem using direct water-level measurements to define DAT thresholds that are indicative of submergence of the sensors. Temperature provides an inexpensive indicator of duration of inundation that can be particularly useful in studies of large and remote floodplains, although the development of inexpensive sensors that directly measure submergence (e.g., by resistivity) will likely become a better option in the future.