SPACE-BORNE CLOUD-NATIVE SATELLITE-DERIVED BATHYMETRY (SDB) MODELS USING
ICESat-2 and SENTINEL-2
Abstract
Shallow nearshore coastal waters provide a wealth of societal, economic
and ecosystem services, yet their topographic structure is poorly mapped
due to a reliance upon expensive and time intensive methods. Space-borne
bathymetric mapping has helped address these issues, but has remained
dependent upon in situ measurements. Here we fuse ICESat-2 lidar data
with Sentinel-2 optical imagery, within the Google Earth Engine
geospatial cloud platform, to create wall-to-wall high-resolution
bathymetric maps at regional-to-national scales in Florida, Crete and
Bermuda. ICESat-2 bathymetric classified photons are used to train three
Satellite Derived Bathymetry (SDB) methods, including Lyzenga, Stumpf
and Support Vector Regression algorithms. For each study site the
Lyzenga algorithm yielded the lowest RMSE (approx. 10-15%) when
compared with in situ NOAA DEM data. We demonstrate a means of using
ICESat-2 for both model calibration and validation, thus cementing a
pathway for fully space-borne estimates of nearshore bathymetry in
shallow, clear water environments.