The monitoring of river water levels, river discharges, water bodies extent, storage in lakes and reservoirs, flooding and floodplain dynamics plays a key role in assessing water resources, understanding surface water dynamics, characterizing and mitigating water related risks and enabling integrated management of water resources and aquatic ecosystems.

While in situ measurement networks play a central role in the monitoring effort, remote sensing techniques are expected to contribute in an increasing way, as they can provide with homogeneous and near real time measurements over large areas, from local to basin wide, regional and global.

During the last ten to twenty years a large number of satellites and sensors have been developed and launched that allow to quantify and monitor the geometry of open water bodies and the extent of flooding (passive microwaves, active microwaves, optical), the water levels (radar and laser altimetry), the global water storage and its changes (GRACE). As demonstrated by scientific studies, remotely sensed variables have the potential to monitor river discharge and their information can be profitably assimilated in hydrological and hydraulic models. Moreover, the recent and forthcoming satellite missions dedicated to global water surfaces monitoring, such as the Sentinels and SWOT, along with more complex technologies like the SAR altimetry on CryoSat-2, will improve the quality, as well as the spatial and temporal coverage, of remotely sensed data. This offers new frontiers and opportunities to enhance the monitoring of inland water and our capability to understand the flow dynamics.

This session concerns measurement and/or estimation of water levels, water extent, flooding, water storage and water discharge of surface water bodies such as rivers, lakes, floodplains and wetlands, through combined use of remote sensing and in situ measurements. We encourage presentations related to flood monitoring and mapping through remotely sensed data. Contributions that cover aspects on assimilation of remote sensing together with in situ data within hydrodynamic models are welcome and encouraged.