{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,19]],"date-time":"2026-06-19T03:58:45Z","timestamp":1781841525762,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":53,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,20]],"date-time":"2020-02-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1582156800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Groundwater icings, typical features of permafrost hydrology, are indicative of hydrothermal interactions between surface and ground waters, and permafrost. Their main morphological parameters, i.e., icing area and volume, are generally estimated with low accuracy. Only scarce field observational data on icing volume and seasonal development exist to date. Our study evaluates and compares performance of several widely used techniques of icing morphometric estimation, based on field data, collected on a giant Icing #2 in the Samokit River basin, southern Yakutia. Groundwater icing area was estimated by: (a) staking, (b) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveys, and (c) satellite imagery analysis. Icing #2 area in late February was between 1.38\u00b7106 m2 and 1.68\u00b7106 m2, icing volume, between 1.73\u00b7106 m3 and 4.20\u00b7106 m3, depending on the technique used. Staking is the least accurate, but also the only direct technique, which is hence used as a baseline tool in our study. Staking-based assessment of icing morphometry is the most conservative, while UAV-based estimates of icing area are higher by 14% to 17%, and of icing volume, by 74% to 142%, compared to staking. The latter appears, in our case, to be the least accurate method, although a direct one. It requires a sufficient number of staking points and transects, which should be set up to represent all icing zones, i.e., channel branches and alluvial islands. Photogrammetry based on UAV surveys has numerous advantages, i.e., higher precision of a per pixel icing volume calculation, based on an ice-free valley bottom digital surface model (DSM), and potential reusability of a resulting DSM. However, positioning precision suffers from the overlay of multiple flyovers required because of battery replacements, and, in our case, an insufficient number of ground control points. Satellite imagery along with B.L. Sokolov\u2019s empirical approach were used to estimate the annual maximum icing area and volume, and the empirical estimates tend to converge to satellite-based values. Finally, all thing being equal, UAV-based photogrammetry shows higher precision in estimating the icing morphometrical parameters.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs12040692","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,21]],"date-time":"2020-02-21T08:59:47Z","timestamp":1582275587000},"page":"692","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":15,"title":["Morphometric Analysis of Groundwater Icings: Intercomparison of Estimation Techniques"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5354-084X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Leonid","family":"Gagarin","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Lanzhou 730000, China"},{"name":"Melnikov Permafrost Institute, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Yakutsk 677010, Russia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Qingbai","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Lanzhou 730000, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Andrey","family":"Melnikov","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Melnikov Permafrost Institute, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Yakutsk 677010, Russia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Nataliya","family":"Volgusheva","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Geoscan Ltd., 26 Shatelena St., St. Petersburg 194021, Russia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2997-0169","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nikita","family":"Tananaev","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Melnikov Permafrost Institute, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Yakutsk 677010, Russia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Huijun","family":"Jin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Lanzhou 730000, China"},{"name":"School of Civil Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), Harbin 150090, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7330-031X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ze","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Lanzhou 730000, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Vladimir","family":"Zhizhin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Melnikov Permafrost Institute, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Yakutsk 677010, Russia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Petrov, V.G. 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