High resolution river and estuarine water level topography from nadir altimetry
Authors: Luciana Fenoglio-Marc, Luciana Fenoglio, Jiaming Chen, Stefano Vignudelli, Ron Abileah, Elena Zakharova, Marco Restano, Jerome Benveniste, Jürgen Kusche
Journal: Journal of Hydrology
DOI: 10.22541/essoar.176131909.90013808/v1
Abstract:
Standard unfocused UFSAR nadir-altimeter products with posting rate of 20 Hz provide water level heights with along-track spacing of 300 meters, which is far from being optimal for coastal zone and inland studies. The fully focused FFSAR processing, that allows much higher resolution and posting rate, shall resolve small scales interferences along-track and thus improve accuracy and precision of the geophysical estimates. This study looks at different water surfaces in rivers,lakes and coastal zone to investigate under which condition and processing scheme the accuracy of water level is higher with FFSAR rather than with UFSAR. We focus on Sentinel-3A,-3B and-6A missions during 2016-2023. Starting from the UFSAR products at 20 Hz posting rate, we investigate the optimal choice for the Level 1 to Level 2 processing algorithms and parameters. We find that posting rates of 80
