HR: 17:30h
AN: H14B-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Near Real Time Monitoring of African Surface Water using Envisat Satellite Radar Altimetry
AU: * Benveniste, J
EM: Jerome.Benveniste@esa.int
AF: European Space Agency, via Galileo Galilei, Frascati, RM 00044 Italy
AU: Berry, P
H14B-07 AF: EAPRS Lab, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH United Kingdom
AU: Garlick, J
H14B-07 AF: EAPRS Lab, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH United Kingdom
AU: Mathers, L
H14B-07 AF: EAPRS Lab, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH United Kingdom
AU: Freeman, J
H14B-07 AF: EAPRS Lab, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH United Kingdom
AU: Defrenne-Goncalves, D
H14B-07 AF: European Space Agency, via Galileo Galilei, Frascati, RM 00044 Italy
AB: Data gathered by a series of satellite radar altimeters have been used extensively to construct historical records of lake and river levels. However, there is a clear requirement for accessing these data in a short timescale (NRT), in order to inform water management decisions. The availability of data from the Envisat RA-2 offers the exciting possibility of retrieving data from a large number of water bodies, including both lakes and rivers across the continents. The reason for this greatly enhanced dataset is that the Envisat RA-2 was specifically designed to remain `in lock' even over rough terrain, enabling the capture of echoes from targets in mountainous terrain. Whilst large lake targets situated in low relief terrain return clear and unambiguous signatures, determination of water levels from the complex echoes returned from water located within rough topography is difficult, since the echo shape is a convolution of the response from the water surface with components from the surrounding terrain. Accordingly, a sophisticated processing scheme has been developed. To verify that the processing of these NRT files is correct, and to assess the actual accuracy that can be achieved, several cycles of IGDR and Level 1B data were used. These data were processed through the NRT system to generate `NRT' data products over multiple targets in Africa. The results were then compared with the off-line processing of the corresponding cycles of SGDR data. The NRT results agree with those from the SGDR processing. In order to perform a full validation for river targets data were also generated over the Amazon basin, where they were compared both with the corresponding SGDR data, and with ground truth. The development of this sophisticated processing and retracking scheme for inland water has allowed, for the first time, production of NRT heights for a large number of targets, including river targets.
DE: 1800 HYDROLOGY
DE: 1857 Reservoirs (surface)
DE: 1872 Time series analysis (3270, 4277, 4475)
DE: 1880 Water management (6334)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005