Locations of beaded streams in the Pan Arctic, 2023 (Harlan et al 2023 Remote Sensing of Environment)

Here we observe and predict the location of beaded stream catchments throughout the pan-Arctic domain by combining the location of known beaded streams with recent advances in computer vision and high-resolution (3 meter (m)) satellite imagery. Specifically, we use the location of known existing beaded streams to classify potential river catchments as beaded or non-beaded, then download high resolution imagery across those regions, and use the latest You-Only-Look-Once (YOLO) object detection algorithm to identify beaded streams throughout the pan-Arctic, estimating 138,500 ± 43,700 beaded catchments globally, occurring in an estimated one third of all pan-Arctic catchments. In the largest dataset of beaded streams to date (Arp et al., 2015), only 375 catchments that contain beaded streams were identified, thus our estimate significantly expands our current understanding of the location and prevalence of Arctic beaded streams.
Data is accessible through the alternate identifier link on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7223256