Biogeomorphology from space: Analyzing the dynamic interactions between hydromorphology and vegetation along the Naryn River in Kyrgyzstan based on dense satellite time series

Abstract

The structure and development of river corridors are controlled by an interplay of hydrological, geomorphological and ecological processes over a range of spatial and temporal scales. The majority of existing studies on fluvial biogeomorphology focus either on conceptual development or on investigations on the scales of single geomorphic units or study reaches. With this study, we extend the view on biogeomorphology beyond the reach scale using satellite time series. We take the Naryn River in Kyrgyzstan as an example for demonstrating our approach to biogeomorphological analysis of river corridors. The Naryn is still in a natural state on an entire flow length of more than 600 km with full longitudinal and lateral connectivity. Along the central part of the catchment, the Naryn is a highly dynamic braided river system. This makes this river ideal to study large scale biogeomorphological dynamics. In our study, we follow the well-established concept of biogeomorphological succession. We mapped the different succession stages in the field and used the results to derive spectral-temporal indices characterizing the different biogeomorphological succession stages. Monthly time series of the modified difference water index as well as the normalized difference vegetation index derived from the Landsat archive have been used to compute statistical trends and changepoints by means of a Bayesian time series decomposition algorithm. The results are then evaluated regarding biogeomorphological succession and disturbance events. The results show that dense satellite time series are well suited to derive indicators of biogeomorphological interactions on large spatial scale. The temporally continuous nature of this kind of observations allows an observation of processes and an interpretation for instance against the background of the theory of adaptive cycles and panarchy. In conclusion, the suggested approach has the potential to give new insights in the structure and functioning of entire river corridors or networks.