loading page

Turning lakes into river gauges using the LakeFlow algorithm
  • +2
  • Ryan M Riggs,
  • George Henry Allen,
  • Craig B Brinkerhoff,
  • Md. Safat Sikder,
  • Jida Wang
Ryan M Riggs
Texas A&M University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

Author Profile
George Henry Allen
Virginia Tech
Author Profile
Craig B Brinkerhoff
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Author Profile
Md. Safat Sikder
Kansas State University
Author Profile
Jida Wang
Kansas State University
Author Profile

Abstract

Rivers and lakes are intrinsically connected waterbodies yet they are rarely used to hydrologically constrain one another with remote sensing. Here we begin to bridge the gap between river and lake hydrology with the introduction of the LakeFlow algorithm. LakeFlow uses river-lake mass conservation and observations from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite to provide river discharge estimates of lake and reservoir inflows and outflows. We test LakeFlow performance at three lakes using a synthetic SWOT dataset containing the maximum measurement errors defined by the mission science requirements, and we include modeled lateral inflow and lake evaporation data to further constrain the mass balance. We find that LakeFlow produces promising discharge estimates (median Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency=0.88, relative bias=14%). LakeFlow can inform water resources management by providing global lake inflow and outflow estimates, highlighting a path for recognizing rivers and lakes as an interconnected system.
04 Apr 2023Submitted to ESS Open Archive
04 Apr 2023Published in ESS Open Archive