Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Estimates of River Bathymetry from Satellite Images: A Case Study of the Nicolect River in Quebec

2022; Springer Nature; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-981-19-1065-4_33

2366-2557

Shayan Salavitabar, S. Samuel Li,

Soil erosion and sediment transport

Bathymetric data is a key input to studies of the river environment, watershed’s hydrological response, and river hydraulics. The conventional approach to acquiring bathymetry data relies on field surveys. They are time-consuming and expensive. In many cases, field surveys are logistically difficult to carry out because river sites can be partially or even entirely inaccessible. The remote sensing approach offers a new opportunity to complement field surveys. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate estimating river bathymetry from satellite images. This paper uses a shallow reach of the Nicolect River near the Town of Victoriaville in central Quebec, as a site of study. We selected multi-spectral high-resolution satellite images that consisted of four spectral bands (red, green, blue and near-infrared) and were virtually free from cloud coverage. More importantly, they gave good conditions of sunlight penetrating the water body. We obtained correlations between frequency bands and field measurements of flow depths at a series of survey locations. The correlations permit the conversion of frequency band ratios to flow depths with optimal coefficients for the rest of the river reach. The results of bathymetry from this study are useful for addressing issues of the Nicolet River, related to sediment bedload transport, excavation pools, and restoration of fish habitats. In addition to bathymetry, detailed results of channel bathymetry can help identify locations of sediment erosion and deposition, and locations of riverbank instability.