ESTIMATION OF THE RIVER BANKFULL DEPTH BY THE INTEGRATION OF A SATELLITE OBSERVATION AND A RIVER ROUTING MODEL

Abstract

 A river bankfull depth, one of the important topographic parameters in a river routing model, was estimated efficiently by using the CaMa-Flood model and a satellite altimetry dataset. We applied the developed method to the Amazon river basin, and, by an OSSE experiment, confirmed that river bankfull depth would be improved even if the uncertainty of runoff existed. In addition, by using a real satellite altimetry dataset, we estimated the river bankfull depth and confirmed this can make the inundation ratio in the basin estimated from the model closer to that from a SAR observation. Next challenges are to validate the method where cross-section data are available and to apply the method on a global scale.