An improved approach to monitoring Brahmaputra River water levels using retracked altimetry data

Huang, Qi; Long, Di; Du, Mingliang; Zeng, Chao; Li, Xingdong; Hou, Aizhong; Hong, Yang

doi:10.1016/j.rse.2018.04.018

Cited by 77 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The results of this study demonstrate that streaklines provide a tool that is complimentary to other remote sensing techniques. Flow direction could also be determined from the gradient of the water surface elevations, which can be measured by lidar or other altimetry platforms (Jason, Envisat, SWOT; [25][26][27]). However, the reached averaged water surface slopes on the WLD are typically much less than 1 × 10 −4 , and the in-situ data show that directions (and therefore gradients) are highly variable at scales <1 km.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validation of Streaklines as Recorders of Synoptic Flow Direction in a Deltaic Setting

2020

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Knowledge of the flow patterns within distributary systems is key for understanding deltaic hydro- and morpho-dynamics, yet synoptic measurements of flow fields remain virtually nonexistent. As a means of overcoming this problem, a small number of studies have used biogenic surface films as synoptic flow tracers, under the assumption that biofilm streaklines are tangent to the local flow direction. Here we rigorously test this assumption and show that, despite flow patterns that change severely in space and time (over a range >270°), streaklines are relatively accurate synoptic flow tracers for the Wax Lake Delta, in Louisiana. When the incoming discharge was greater than 2400 m3/s with stable or falling tides, the streakline-derived flow direction departed from near bed flow direction measurements of 22.8° (root mean square). When the discharge was greater than 2400 m3/s and the tides were rising greater than 0.03 m/hr, they were accurate within 28.0°. Under conditions of discharge less than 2400 m3/s and tidal change less than a positive 0.03 m/hr, they were accurate within 33.3°, while during low discharge and rising tides they were accurate within 58.9°. Accuracy varied with distance from the delta, with proximal sites having greater precision. Our results demonstrate that a streakline-derived flow direction can characterize the spatiotemporal variability in the flow directions, but that the accuracy is significantly influenced by the hydrodynamic conditions and location within the network.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validation of Streaklines as Recorders of Synoptic Flow Direction in a Deltaic Setting

2020

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“…We acquired evaluation stage data from 65 stream gages (on 12 rivers) (Environment Canada, 2016; Jacobs, 2002;Martinez, 2003;USGS, 2016). All stage data are publicly available with the exception of data from the Congo, Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Zambezi, which were provided by the authors.…”

Section: Data Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using retracked river observations, inland radar altimetry can accurately measure changing river surface elevation (Koblinsky et al, 1993;Berry et al, 2005;Frappart et al, 2006;Alsdorf et al, 2007;Santos da Silva et al, 2010;Papa et al, 2010;Dubey et al, 2015;Tourian et al, 2016;Verron et al, 2018). While custom retrackers have been derived and tested in particular locations (Huang et al, 2018;Maillard et al, 2015;Sulistioadi et al, 2015) the ICE-1 retracker (Wingham et al, 1986) is arguably the best compromise between being consistently reliable and available for many altimeter missions (Biancamaria et al, 2017;Frappart et al, 2006;Santos da Silva et al, 2010). While available globally, the ICE-1 retracked data must be extracted over river targets, and carefully filtered, to make them useful to global hydrological modeling applications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global River Radar Altimetry Time Series (GRRATS): new river elevation earth science data records for the hydrologic community

Coss

Durand

et al. 2020

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. The capabilities of radar altimetry to measure inland water bodies are well established, and several river altimetry datasets are available. Here we produced a globally distributed dataset, the Global River Radar Altimeter Time Series (GRRATS), using Envisat and Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 radar altimeter data spanning the time period 2002–2016. We developed a method that runs unsupervised, without requiring parameterization at the measurement location, dubbed virtual station (VS) level, and applied it to all altimeter crossings of ocean-draining rivers with widths >900 m (>34 % of the global drainage area). We evaluated every VS, either quantitatively for VS locations where in situ gages are available or qualitatively using a grade system. We processed nearly 1.5 million altimeter measurements from 1478 VSs. After quality control, the final product contained 810 403 measurements distributed over 932 VSs located on 39 rivers. Available in situ data allowed quantitative evaluation of 389 VSs on 12 rivers. The median standard deviation of river elevation error is 0.93 m, Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency is 0.75, and correlation coefficient is 0.9. GRRATS is a consistent, well-documented dataset with a user-friendly data visualization portal, freely available for use by the global scientific community. Data are available at https://doi.org/10.5067/PSGRA-SA2V1 (Coss et al., 2016).

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“…In the context studies related to river water level, most investigations are conducted for the Amazon (e.g., [190][191][192]), Brahmaputra (e.g., [193,194]), Congo (e.g., [195,196]), Ganges (e.g., [197,198]), and Mekong river basin (e.g., [199,200]). Among these, ∼33% of the studies retrieved river water level for virtual stations distributed over the entire river basins and the remaining studies for virtual stations at regional and subbasin scale only.…”

Section: Hydrosphere: River Water Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The results of the validation indicate high variations for the root mean square difference, in particular between 12 cm and several meters. Moreover, Huang et al [194] developed a novel waveform retracking algorithm called "threshold and Ice-1 combination" for river water level retrieval. This algorithm was particularly proposed for high mountainous areas and tested for the Upper Brahmaputra river basin.…”

Section: Hydrosphere: River Water Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Earth Observation-Based Analyses for Major River Basins

Uereyen

Kuenzer

2019

Remote Sensing

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Regardless of political boundaries, river basins are a functional unit of the Earth’s land surface and provide an abundance of resources for the environment and humans. They supply livelihoods supported by the typical characteristics of large river basins, such as the provision of freshwater, irrigation water, and transport opportunities. At the same time, they are impacted i.e., by human-induced environmental changes, boundary conflicts, and upstream–downstream inequalities. In the framework of water resource management, monitoring of river basins is therefore of high importance, in particular for researchers, stake-holders and decision-makers. However, land surface and surface water properties of many major river basins remain largely unmonitored at basin scale. Several inventories exist, yet consistent spatial databases describing the status of major river basins at global scale are lacking. Here, Earth observation (EO) is a potential source of spatial information providing large-scale data on the status of land surface properties. This review provides a comprehensive overview of existing research articles analyzing major river basins primarily using EO. Furthermore, this review proposes to exploit EO data together with relevant open global-scale geodata to establish a database and to enable consistent spatial analyses and evaluate past and current states of major river basins.

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An improved approach to monitoring Brahmaputra River water levels using retracked altimetry data

Cited by 77 publications

References 53 publications

Validation of Streaklines as Recorders of Synoptic Flow Direction in a Deltaic Setting

Validation of Streaklines as Recorders of Synoptic Flow Direction in a Deltaic Setting

Global River Radar Altimetry Time Series (GRRATS): new river elevation earth science data records for the hydrologic community

A Review of Earth Observation-Based Analyses for Major River Basins

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