The real-time monitoring of hydrodynamics in wetlands at fine spatial and temporal scales is crucial for understanding ecological and hydrological processes. The key interest of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data is its ability to accurately detect microtopography. However, how such data may account for subtle wetland flooding changes in both space and time still needs to be tested, even though the degree to which these changes impact biodiversity patterns is of upmost importance. This study assesses the use of 1 m × 1 m resolution aerial LiDAR data in combination with in situ piezometric measurements in order to predict the flooded areas at a daily scale along a one-year hydrological period. The simulation was applied over 663 ha of wet grasslands distributed on six sites across the Marais Poitevin (France). A set of seven remote sensing images was used as the reference data in order to validate the simulation and provide a high overall accuracy (76-94%). The best results were observed in areas where the ditch density was low, whereas the highly drained sites showed a discrepancy with the predicted flooded areas. The landscape proportion index was calculated for the daily steps. The results highlighted the spatiotemporal dynamics of the shallow flooded areas. We showed that the differences in the flooding durations among the years were mainly related to a narrow contrast in topography (40 cm), and occurred over a short period of time (two months).Sustainability 2018, 10, 708 2 of 16 address these challenges, data with both spatial fine-scale and intensive temporal resolutions for the flooding proxies are required.There have been recent advances in Earth observation technology, including improved spatial, temporal, spectral, and radiometric resolutions [7]; however, the monitoring of shallow and fine-grained water pattern dynamics is still limited by the trade-off between either high-resolution images or images with intensive repetition over time [8]. As an example, some studies have shown an interest in SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) time series for monitoring flooded areas in wetlands at a regional scale [9,10], while other studies have underlined an interest in single-date light detection and ranging (LiDAR) intensity [11] or multispectral data [12] for detecting fine-scale spatial patterns in the flooding of shallow waters.Earth observation data can be used to calibrate and develop flood models [13]. Topographic data are crucial for hydraulic modeling, particularly in wetlands where the topography affects water runoff [1]. Topographic data are also the most significant source of uncertainty [14]; consequently, the broad digital elevation model (DEM) derived from SAR data such as SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission), or, more recently, TanDEM-X (TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement) are only appropriate for large-scale flood studies [8]. Conversely, LiDAR-based digital terrain models (DTM) provide high-resolution spatial information, and have been found to be suitable for the characteri...