Bathymetry from fusion of multi-temporal Landsat and radar altimetery

Abstract

Near shore bathymetry of Lake Nasser, Egypt was derived by fusing shoreline contours from 58 Landsat images spanning the years 1998–2003 with water levels from the various satellite radar altimeters operated by US and European agencies. A least-square fit is made on paired water area (from Landsat) with water levels (from the altimeters) observations. The fitted function is then used to assign a relative depth to each Landsat image shoreline. A series of shorelines are interpolated into depth contours at 1 m intervals. The bathymetry resulting from this process has rmse ∼10 cm.