Permafrost Discovery Gateway: Exploring hydrological changes through big geospatial data (Invited)

Much of our understanding of pan-Arctic landscape change relies on the assumption that what is observed and documented from a few locations apply to the entire domain. That assumption can now be tested using big geospatial data, AI technology, and optimized workflows that allow for efficient use of high performance computing. The Permafrost Discovery Gateway (PDG) aims to enable big geospatial product creation and analysis to support earth science and Arctic community planning. PDG’s pan-Arctic geospatial products reaches down to sub-meter scales such as the ice-wedge polygon and surface water maps derived from Maxar imagery and includes a growing collection of new datasets such as annual changes in lakes and retrogressive thaw slumps (Landsat and Sentinel imagery) to ice-wedge polygon troughs and infrastructure (Maxar imagery). PDG tools encompasses the ImageryViewer, which supports discovery via a map-view, and the PlotViewer that will support 2D to 4D graphing of the big geospatial datasets. In the coming years, AI will be utilized also in the analysis of the geospatial products, which will be automatically generated during the snow-free season as imagery becomes available. This presentation will offer a sneak-peak into the freshly generated hydrological datasets and what insights they offer on the hydrological status of the Arctic landscape.