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A framework for estimating global river discharge from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite mission
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  • Michael Durand,
  • Colin Joseph Gleason,
  • Tamlin M Pavelsky,
  • Renato Prata de Moraes Frasson,
  • Michael J. Turmon,
  • Cédric Hervé David,
  • Elizabeth Humphries Altenau,
  • Nikki Tebaldi,
  • Kevin Larnier,
  • Jérôme Monnier,
  • Pierre-Olivier Malaterre,
  • Hind Oubanas,
  • George Henry Allen,
  • Paul D Bates,
  • David Michael Bjerklie,
  • Stephen Paul Coss,
  • Robert W. Dudley,
  • Luciana Fenoglio Marc,
  • Pierre-André Garambois,
  • Peirong Lin,
  • Steven A Margulis,
  • Pascal Matte,
  • J. Toby Minear,
  • Aggrey Muhebwa,
  • Ming Pan,
  • Daniel Peters,
  • Ryan Matthew Riggs,
  • ANGELICA TARPANELLI,
  • Kerstin Schulze,
  • Mohammad Javad Tourian,
  • Jida Wang
Michael Durand
Ohio State University
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Colin Joseph Gleason
University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Tamlin M Pavelsky
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Renato Prata de Moraes Frasson
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
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Michael J. Turmon
Jet Propulsion Lab
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Cédric Hervé David
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Elizabeth Humphries Altenau
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Nikki Tebaldi
University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Kevin Larnier
CS corporation
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Jérôme Monnier
INSA Toulouse
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Pierre-Olivier Malaterre
Irstea Montpellier
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Hind Oubanas
INRAE
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George Henry Allen
Texas A&M University
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Paul D Bates
University of Bristol
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David Michael Bjerklie
United States Geological Survey
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Stephen Paul Coss
Ohio State University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Robert W. Dudley
U. S. Geological Survey
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Luciana Fenoglio Marc
University of Bonn
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Pierre-André Garambois
INRAE, Aix Marseille Univ, RECOVER
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Peirong Lin
Peking University
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Steven A Margulis
University of California Los Angeles
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Pascal Matte
Environment and Climate Change Canada
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J. Toby Minear
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado
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Aggrey Muhebwa
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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Ming Pan
University of California San Diego
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Daniel Peters
Environment Canada
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Ryan Matthew Riggs
Texas A&M University
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ANGELICA TARPANELLI
National Research Council
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Kerstin Schulze
University of Bonn
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Mohammad Javad Tourian
University of Stuttgart
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Jida Wang
Kansas State University
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Abstract

The forthcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission will vastly expand measurements of global rivers, providing critical new datasets for both gaged and ungaged basins. SWOT discharge products will provide discharge for all river reaches wider than 100 m, but at lower accuracy and temporal resolution than what is possible in situ. In this paper, we describe how SWOT discharge produced and archived by the US and French space agencies will be computed from measurements of river water surface elevation, width, and slope and ancillary data, along with expected discharge accuracy. We present here for the first time a complete estimate of SWOT discharge uncertainty budget, with separate terms for random (standard error) and systematic (bias) uncertainty components in river discharge timeseries. We expect that discharge uncertainty will be less than 30% for two thirds of global reaches and will be dominated by bias. Separate river discharge estimates will combine both SWOT and in situ data; these “gage constrained” discharge estimates can be expected to have lower systematic uncertainty. Temporal variations in river discharge timeseries will be dominated by random error and are expected to be estimated to within 15% for nearly all reaches, allowing accurate inference of event flow dynamics globally, including in ungaged basins. We believe this level of accuracy lays the groundwork for SWOT to enable breakthroughs in global hydrologic science.