Improving SAR Altimeter processing over the coastal zone and inland waters- the ESA HYDROCOASTAL project

The objectives of the HYDROCOASTAL project, funded by the European Space Agency under the EO Science for Society programme, are to enhance our understanding of interactions between the inland water and coastal zone, between the coastal zone and the open ocean, and the small scale processes that govern these interactions. The project also aims to improve our capability to characterize the variation at different time scales of inland water storage, exchanges with the ocean and the impact on regional sea-level changes

 

To achieve these aims, the HYDROCOASTAL project team has developed and implemented new SAR altimeter processing algorithms for the coastal zone and inland waters, and with these processed Sentinel 3A, 3B and Cryosat-2 data to generate  to generate an initial 2-year Test Data Set for selected regions. The performance of these new algorithms has been evaluated, by statistical analyses and comparison against in situ data. From this analysis, the best performing algorithms have been identified and a processing scheme implemented to generate a global scale coastal zone and inland water altimeter data set.

 

A series of case studies are now assessing these products in terms of their scientific impacts.  All the produced data sets will be available on request to external researchers, and full descriptions of the processing algorithms are available via the project web-site

 

The presentation will provide an overview of the HYDROCOASTAL project, describe the different SAR altimeter processing algorithms that have been implemented and evaluated in the first phase of the project, and present results from the evaluation of the initial test data set. It will also present early results from  impact studies.