Mapping of West Siberian taiga wetland complexes using Landsat imagery:
implications for methane emissions

Terentieva, Irina Evgenievna; Glagolev, Mikhail Vladimirovich; Lapshina, Elena Dmitrievna; Sabrekov, Alexandr Faritovich; Maksyutov, Shamil

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4615-2016

Articles | Volume 13, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4615-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4615-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 16

Research article

|

16 Aug 2016

Research article |

| 16 Aug 2016

Mapping of West Siberian taiga wetland complexes using Landsat imagery: implications for methane emissions

Irina Evgenievna Terentieva, Mikhail Vladimirovich Glagolev, Elena Dmitrievna Lapshina, Alexandr Faritovich Sabrekov, and Shamil Maksyutov

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Final revised paper (published on 16 Aug 2016)
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Preprint (discussion started on 16 Dec 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC C9718: 'bg-2015-551 referee comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Feb 2016
RC C9950: 'My comments on the article: High resolution wetland mapping in West Siberian taiga zone for methane emission inventory', Anonymous Referee #2, 23 Feb 2016
AC C10379: 'Reply to Referees #1 and #2', Irina Terentieva, 31 Mar 2016
- AC C10380: 'Fig. 1 from the "Reply" (high resolution)', Irina Terentieva, 31 Mar 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (17 Apr 2016) by Paul Stoy

AR by Irina Terentieva on behalf of the Authors (27 May 2016)

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (31 May 2016) by Paul Stoy

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (18 Jun 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors' corrections have substantially enhanced the presentation: the methodology section can be more easily followed; there is significantly more clarity and detail throughout the manuscript. Overall, the text and language improved considerably and it’s now clearer than before how the results are linked to the objectives of the work.
I have only a few comments for things to be modified at this point (line numbers refer to the revised pdf manuscript denoted “bg-2015-551-manuscript-version4.pdf”):
Please rerun the document through a grammar check or have a copy editor check the language. As authors noticed, there are still issues with the language.
P. 2 L. 24 - The Schroeder et al. (2010) and Papa et al. (2010) products rely on the use of microwave sensors to derive what is called “fractional surface water” which is all temporary “inundation” and permanent “open water” combined. These products therefore do not just measure “inundation” as authors mention in the text. Moreover, authors say that these products do not sense “unsaturated” wetlands, which implies that saturated wetlands are included which was not clear. Because “saturation” is a term that implies water content in a medium (e.g. soil, wood, peat etc.), I suggest authors use the term “non-inundated” instead to describe the CH4-emitting wetlands missing in the forementioned surface water products. Bohn et al. (2013) for instance describes the non-inundated wetland category as “exposed and saturated”. Regardless, here is how authors can write this more consistently with respect to current literature findings: “Products derived primarily from coarse-resolution microwave remote sensing data (Prigent et al. 2007, Schroeder et al. 2010, Papa et al. 2010, Jones et al. 2010, Schroeder et al. 2015) generally map the presence of surface water in the landscape, thus overlooking non-inundated, CH4-emitting wetlands in which the water table is at or below the soil/peat surface”. I suppose that wetlands in which the water table is just below the moss cover but still above the peat surface could be considered inundated rather than “unsaturated” or non-inundated. This is because a shallow layer of moss acts as an intervening layer rather than an impervious mask, which, for the latter, would likely cause the area be classified non-inundated. Because of the enhanced sensitivity of visible and IR sensors to surface water signal contamination by vegetation, I’d expect microwave sensors to outperform visible/IR instruments in their ability to detect standing water in vegetated areas. However, the maximum likelihood classifier approach and the use of filters have likely removed part of this ability.
P. 5 L. 5 - I would write this as follows: “Surface water detection was performed using a threshold approach applied to Landsat’s band 5 (1.55-1.75 μm). However, because of the vegetation masking effect, detection was limited to open water bodies and inundation not masked by vegetation”. There is no such thing as observing inundation below the soil or peat surface as inundation is defined as standing water above the soil surface. Note that Landsat’s band 5 works also very well to discriminate water content in plant tissue or soil. But, that, per se, is not directly related to the presence of open water bodies within the field of view.
The newly developed wetland map is a major improvement relative to prior maps and there should be broad interest in its use.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (30 Jun 2016)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (30 Jun 2016) by Paul Stoy

AR by Irina Terentieva on behalf of the Authors (18 Jul 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (21 Jul 2016) by Paul Stoy

AR by Irina Terentieva on behalf of the Authors (28 Jul 2016) Author's response Manuscript

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Short summary

West Siberia (WS) wetlands are the world’s largest high-latitude wetland system. WS methane emission estimates suffered from large uncertainty due to high emission rate variability across the wetland vegetation cover. We mapped WS taiga zone wetlands with Landsat imagery and applied wetland typology specifically developed to reflect heterogeneity of methane fluxes. The map provides a benchmark for validation of coarse-resolution land cover products and wetland data sets in high latitudes.