Advances in Remote sensing of Inland waters by Satellite Altimetry with special focus on SWOT (ARISAS)

• Applicant: Dr.-Ing. Denise Dettmering
• Subject Area: Geodesy, Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Geoinformatics, Cartography
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 324641997

Within the RU GlobalCDA, the project ARISAS provides satellite-derived water level time series of major inland water bodies. This dataset is foundational for the computation of surface storage changes as well as river discharge. Both of these quantities are required for the calibration and assimilation into the WaterGAP model. ARISAS targets at the development of approaches to improve the quality and consistency of altimetry-derived water level time series as well as on the derivation of reliable uncertainty estimates. In the first phase of the RU, the project was mainly dealing with the development of methods to enable automatic identification of water bodies and to ensure automatic data processing in order to prepare the generation of highly accurate time series on a global scale without time-consuming manual interaction. A new focus in the second phase will be on the exploitation of new altimetry sensors and measurement techniques, especially ICESat-2 laser measurements and wide swath altimetry from the SWOT mission. One important task will be the derivation of consistent and accurate long-term water level time series from a combination of classical and new datasets.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 2630: Understanding the global freshwater system by combining geodetic and remote sensing information with modelling using a calibration/data assimilation approach (GlobalCDA)
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr.-Ing. Florian Seitz