UAS Hydrometry – Contactless airborne measurements of water level, depth, flow velocity and discharge in rivers and streams
- 1DTU Sustain, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark (pbau@dtu.dk)
- 2SPH Engineering, Riga, Latvia
- 3Geolux DOO, Samobor, Croatia
- 4Thurn Group Ltd, Norwich, UK
- 5Drone Systems Aps, Aarhus, Denmark
- 6CNR Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection, Perugia, Italy
- 7SMHI Sveriges Meteorologiska och Hydrologiska Institut, Norrköping, Sweden
- 8Technische Universität München, München, Germany
- 9Lobelia Earth SL, Barcelona, Spain
- *A full list of authors appears at the end of the abstract
High-resolution monitoring of rivers is important because rivers are severely affected by climate change and both frequency and magnitude of extreme events are changing rapidly. Advanced in-situ monitoring technologies need to be combined with satellite Earth Observation (EO) to provide accurate, reliable, and spatio-temporally resolved information for effective decision support, risk assessment, investment analysis for climate change adaptation, and operational forecasting/surveillance.
Traditional hydrometric monitoring of rivers is in-situ and station-based. In-situ monitoring networks lack spatial resolution, have been declining in many regions, and data accessibility is increasingly restricted because of growing conflicts between countries over water resources allocation. To solve this problem, hydrometric monitoring using satellite earth observation needs to be combined with drone-borne hydrometric monitoring technology for validation, deployment in remote and inaccessible regions, and for reliable and accurate estimation of river discharge.
The Horizon Europe UAWOS project develops an Unmanned Airborne Water Observing System to provide key hydrometric variables (bathymetry, velocimetry, water surface elevation) at high spatial resolution/coverage, and data-based products/services to support management and decision making. UAWOS integrates airborne data streams with Copernicus water bodies and water level services for cross validation and to estimate river discharge from satellite EO data.
This contribution outlines the UAWOS work programme and reports first results of airborne surveys using (i) radar altimetry for water surface elevation mapping, (ii) water penetrating radar and sonar for bathymetric mapping and Doppler radar for surface velocity monitoring. The combination of these datasets for river discharge estimation as well as for validation and enhancement of satellite radar altimetry datasets will be discussed.
Peter Bauer-Gottwein1, Daniel Olesen1, Karina Nielsen1, Alexander Rietz1, Monica Coppo Frías1, Alexey Dobrovolskiy2, Alexey Kadek2, Niksa Orlic3, Tomislav Grubesa3, Tom Hiller4, Henrik Grosen5, Sune Nielsen5, Angelica Tarpanelli6, Silvia Barbetta6, Daniele Giordan6, David Gustafsson7, Daniel Wennerberg7, Markus Disse8, Fabian Merk8, Gabriele Chiogna8, Laia Romero9, Maria Jose Escorihuela9
How to cite: Bauer-Gottwein, P., Olesen, D., Nielsen, K., Rietz, A., Coppo Frías, M., Dobrovolskiy, A., Kadek, A., Orlic, N., Grubesa, T., Hiller, T., Grosen, H., Nielsen, S., Tarpanelli, A., Giordan, D., Barbetta, S., Gustafsson, D., Wennerberg, D., Disse, M., Merk, F., and Romero, L. and the UAWOS project team: UAS Hydrometry – Contactless airborne measurements of water level, depth, flow velocity and discharge in rivers and streams, A European vision for hydrological observations and experimentation, Naples, Italy, 12–15 Jun 2023, GC8-Hydro-52, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-gc8-hydro-52, 2023.
