@raisins which resources would you point to that would assist with identifying spring seeps in hill/mountain/ side hill terrain? I can usually identify drainages and draws no problem with or without appreciable water based on contours but what takes a long time to identify are areas on hillsides that have some wetness to them. The larger ones show as marshland on typical topos but I’m looking for the smaller ones that are manageable enough to be able to shoot within bow range. In other words, I don’t want to have to foot scout every possible draw/drainage on a given property. There can be aplenty as you probably know.
For small surface flows this is what I would do:
I would try to get a map of flow accumulation (aka upslope contributing area) for each grid cell in a map.
You can make this with an ESRI license. You input into the flow accumulation tool (see here).
ArcGIS geoprocessing toolset containing tools that model the flow of water across a surface.
pro.arcgis.com
an elevation map that is grid cells (the elevation of each cell is assigned and it makes a nice color map). It then tells you (for each cell) based upon elevation and angle (aspect) of each cell how may cells above it would have their water flow through that cell if poured (and none absorbed).
Imagine the starting condition is a marble in the center of each cell of an elevation map. You play a game where you have move 1, 2, 3, etc and each move all the marbles move how they would roll on that map under gravity (if you could have it as a 3D model with marbles on it). Cells that would have more marbles passthrough it in this example tend to be wetter.
This is so accurate that you can find streams on a map using this technique that are not shown on topo or a landcover map. It would pick up wet spots that your eye wouldn't identify on a map because it looks at the whole maps contribution and raster/cell elevation data is often higher resolution than topos (although some comes from topos).
For actual eruption of groundwater from a hillside, I would be stumped/have to think about it more.
I just found this data set for at least a part of California (would have to plot the extent).
But I doubt it would include the small areas.
Perhaps there is USGS maps that have maps that show depth to groundwater/water table. You could then lay an elevation map over it to so if the hillside cuts into the aquifer.
Someone could probably "train" a classifying algorithm
(how they do these off of satellite data
www.usgs.gov
)
to look for smallish open areas with a certain reflection of colors that are associated with seeps. You would train this by going out and taking the coordinates of several seeps and several non-seeps and then artificial intelligence does the rest.
That would be a several year long project though.
Let me think about it some more.
When in person, what characteristics do your seeps have that differentiate from the surrounding area (other than the soil is wet)? In WV, it is wet soil and a change in vegetation that makes it more open and different vegetation types. Too bad there isn't usually significant erosion, you might be able to pick that up on Lidar.