Imagery, topography, and landscape change derived from data collected between 1984 and 2021 for Colorado River-sourced aeolian dunefields within Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

These data were collected as part of an investigation of the influence of river regulation on fluvial-aeolian interactions. Data are focused on 24  fluvially sourced aeolian dunefields distributed across a 225-mile (362-km) section of the Colorado River corridor within Grand Canyon National Park, downstream of Glen Canyon Dam. These data include newly developed topographic datasets derived from aerial imagery collected in 1984, land cover classifications from field observations and 2021 multispectral imagery collected by the US Geological Survey, and topographic change detection results that incorporate the 1984 photogrammetrically derived topography included within this data release and 2002 – 2021 topography within a previous data release by Sankey and others (2025). Collectively, these spatial datasets and tabular results provide documentation of physical changes to the river-sourced aeolian landscape adjacent to the Colorado River that have been influenced by changes in river flow, sediment supply, and riparian vegetation since the largest dam release out of Glen Canyon Dam in 1983. The data referenced here has been divided into three parts as follows:

1. Raster_datasets.zip includes georeferenced 1984 aerial imagery and topography in geoTIFF format at 16 of 24 river-sourced aeolien dunefields included in the study.

2. Shapefile_datasets.zip includes spatial polygon vector files in .shp format representing the 2021 land cover classification for 24 river-sourced aeolian dunfields.

3. Tabular_datasets.zip includes a machine readable spreadsheet in .csv format of topographic change detection results and field observations for 24 river-sourced aeolian dunfields.