[GLIMS] Argentinean glacier’s round robin experiment

[dfalaschi at mendoza-conicet.gob.ar]

Argentinean glacier’s round robin experiment

Dear GLIMS colleagues and glacier enthusiasts,
My name is Daniel Falaschi, and I’m a Ph.D. student from Argentina, working at the Argentinean Institute for snow and Ice (IANIGLA). I´m working on glacier mapping techniques, and I also belong to the National Glacier Inventory of Argentina initiative that is under development.
The goal of this round robin experiment is to approximately replicate the experiment recently conducted by Dr. Frank Paul et al., that aimed to the assessment of the accuracy of automatic and manually-derived glacier outlines. Additionally, we also are interested in mapping not just glaciers, but rock glaciers as well. We are testing three areas at different latitudes of the Andes: Southern Patagonia, Central Andes and Puna, by working with different spatial resolution Landsat, Aster and ALOS satellite images. The exercise consists basically in manually digitizing 10 glaciers (or rock glaciers) for each area; the detailed instructions are below. The complete exercise is time consuming; however you can help me with the area you like the most; any help is welcome and very much appreciated. 
If you are willing to become part of this experiment, please do not hesitate to contact me at the following email address: dfalaschi at mendoza-conicet.gov.ar  so I can provide you the satellite images and other files to perform the digitizing session. These results are intended to be formally published, and of course you can become part of the authors.

 Instructions

Area 1: San Lorenzo (Southern Patagonia)
Proceeding:
1.	Digitize each glacier manually 3 times each from the Landsat Image. (If you don’t feel like doing it 3 times, then once is ok to me). Leave at least 24 hs between each digitizing session. Do not look at the previous digitizing you have performed of from another person. To look at Google Earth is also not allowed. Changing the brightness and contrast of the image to allow glacier mapping in shadow areas is permitted.
2.	Digitize each glacier manually 1 time in the ALOS PRISM image. Follow the same conditions as in step 1.
3.	Once you have completed the digitizing exercise (first Landsat, then ALOS), you can send me your shapefiles. (You can send me the shapefiles as you perform each digitizing session as well, if you want).

Area 2: Tunuyan (Central Andes)
Proceeding:
1.	Follow the same steps as in Area 1, but replacing the ASTER image for the ALOS PRISM scene.

Area 3: Nevados de Cachi (Argentinian Puna)
Proceeding:
1.	Digitize each rock glacier once for each scene in the following order: Landsat (or Aster), then ALOS AVNIR2, and finally ALOS PRISM

Thank you very much in advance for your cooperation.
Sincerely,

Daniel Falaschi


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Lic. Daniel Falaschi
Ianigla - CCT Mendoza - Conicet
Casilla de Correo 330
5500 Mendoza, Argentina
Tel.: +54 - 261 - 524 4262
dfalaschi at mendoza-conicet.gov.ar
www.glaciares.org.ar