Generation of high-resolution water surface slopes from multi-mission
satellite altimetry
Abstract
For nearly three decades, satellite radar altimetry has provided
measurements of the water surface elevation (WSE) of rivers. These
observations can be used to calculate the water surface slope (WSS),
which is an essential parameter for estimating flow velocity and river
discharge. In this study, we calculate a high-resolution WSS of 11
Polish rivers based on multi-mission altimetry observations from 11
satellites in the period from 1994 to 2022. The proposed approach is
based on a weighted such gauge stations adjustment with an additional
Laplace condition and an a priori gradient
condition. The processing is divided into river sections not interrupted
by dams and reservoirs. After proper determination of the WSE for each
river kilometer (bin), the WSS between adjacent bins is calculated. To
assess the accuracy of the estimated WSS, it is compared with slopes
between gauge stations, which are referenced to a common vertical datum.
Such gauge stations are available for 8 investigated rivers. The root
mean squared error (RMSE) ranges from 3 mm/km to
80 mm/km, with an average of 26 mm/km.
However, the mean RMSE decreases to 10 mm/km when the 2
mountain rivers are excluded. The WSS accuracies are also compared with
those of slope datasets based on digital elevation models, ICESat-2
altimetry, and lidar. For 6 rivers the estimated WSS showed the highest
accuracy. The improvement was particularly significant for mountain
rivers. The proposed approach allows an accurate, high-resolution WSS
even for small and medium-sized rivers and can be applied to almost any
river worldwide.