Supporting Files for Radwin et al., "Shrinking Salt Crusts of the Bonneville Basin, Utah: Observations from Multispectral Remote Sensing"

Supporting Files for Radwin et al., "Shrinking Salt Crusts of the Bonneville Basin, Utah: Observations from Multispectral Remote Sensing"

For any questions regarding the data or methodology, or desire to utilize the data, please contact the corresponding author, Mark Radwin, at [e-mail]

NOTE: As of time of uplaod, this manuscript is currently UNPUBLISHED - Please refer to the manuscript for more information (which will be posted here once available)

Abstract: Halite crusts in Utah’s Bonneville basin, including the Bonneville Salt Flats, Newfoundland basin, and Pilot Valley saline pans, show rapid spatiotemporal variations and significant declines in surface area over the past century. Using multispectral satellite imagery from 1984 to 2024 (585 dates), aerial imagery from 1946 to 1978, and a 1925 map, we analyze long-term changes in halite and water surface areas to understand these salt crust systems' evolution and hydrological/climatic influences. Data are processed into Normalized Difference Water Index and Halite Index rasters and classified with static and dynamic thresholds, respectively. Results indicate that the Bonneville Salt Flats has shrunk by 75% since 1925, with a decline rate of 0.75-1.45 km²/year, projecting a potential disappearance between 2072 and 2126. The Newfoundland basin crust, an anthropogenic feature, has been declining at 2.6-6 km²/year and may vanish between 2154 and 2353. When normalized to initial area, decline rates are comparable between the Bonneville Salt Flats and Newfoundland basin. In contrast, the ephemeral Pilot Valley crust shows no clear long-term reduction in area but considerable intra-annual variability. Flooding events are observed to be significant drivers of halite area changes, with post-flood halite growth 30-90 days after peak water area. These findings underscore the dynamic nature of salt crust systems, reveal links between hydrological cycles and crust dynamics, and provide a framework for future research, monitoring, and management of salt flats in arid regions.

This is a repository dataset containing: 1) Code, 2) Data, 3) Shapefiles, and 4) Supplemental Figures from this study. With this dataset, our workflow can be replicated and data reproduced. 

This repository hosts a downloadable zipped folder containing four subfolders:

Code

Contains Jupyter Notebook files (Python) used to acquire and process Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellite data

The code utilizes Google Earth Engine

Datasets

Contains datasets for:

All unfiltered area measurements

Filtered area measurements for each saline pan

Variability data for each saline pan

Regional PDSI data

Regional precipitation data

Shapefiles

Files used to delineate saline pan boundaries for surface area measurements

Supplemental Figures

Figure A1 and it's associated figure caption