Measuring flood output from 110 coastal watersheds in California with field measurements and SeaWiFS

Research Article| July 01, 2001 Measuring flood output from 110 coastal watersheds in California with field measurements and SeaWiFS Leal A.K. Mertes; Leal A.K. Mertes 1Department of Geography and Institute for Computational Earth System Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Jonathan A. Warrick Jonathan A. Warrick 2Marine Science Program and Institute for Computational Earth System Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Author and Article Information Leal A.K. Mertes 1Department of Geography and Institute for Computational Earth System Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA Jonathan A. Warrick 2Marine Science Program and Institute for Computational Earth System Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA Publisher: Geological Society of America Received: 06 Sep 2000 Revision Received: 28 Feb 2001 Accepted: 13 Mar 2001 First Online: 02 Jun 2017 Online ISSN: 1943-2682 Print ISSN: 0091-7613 Geological Society of America Geology (2001) 29 (7): 659–662. https://doi.org/10.1130/0091-7613(2001)029<0659:MFOFCW>2.0.CO;2 Article history Received: 06 Sep 2000 Revision Received: 28 Feb 2001 Accepted: 13 Mar 2001 First Online: 02 Jun 2017 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Citation Leal A.K. Mertes, Jonathan A. Warrick; Measuring flood output from 110 coastal watersheds in California with field measurements and SeaWiFS. Geology 2001;; 29 (7): 659–662. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/0091-7613(2001)029<0659:MFOFCW>2.0.CO;2 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Refmanager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentBy SocietyGeology Search Advanced Search Abstract The 1300-km-long California coast receives output from watersheds that range from ∼10 km2 within the coastal mountain ranges to ∼120 000 km2 for the drainage basins of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. Results from a combination of field and remote-sensing data, modeling, and digital techniques show that during the El Niño winter of 1998, the impact of sediment and water transport on nearshore waters from coastal watersheds was spatially extensive, varied with depth, and was comparable to the impact of output from large rivers. The mass of sediment estimated from SeaWiFS data for 25 discrete and coalesced buoyant river plumes emanating from 110 watersheds was 2.2 × 106 t. Although the mass of all of the plumes represents only 1%–2% of the total sediment output from the rivers, the plumes covered an area of 29 500 km2 of coastal waters. An important cautionary note is that the surface plumes visible in the remote-sensing data (even though nearly coincident with flooding) do not represent mass output from the rivers. You do not have access to this content, please speak to your institutional administrator if you feel you should have access.