Modelling extreme water levels using intertidal topography and bathymetry derived from multispectral satellite images

Abstract. Topographic and bathymetric data are essential for accurate predictions of flooding in estuaries because water depth and elevation data are fundamental components of the shallow-water hydrodynamic equations used in models for storm surges and tides. Where lidar or in situ acoustic surveys are unavailable, recent efforts have centred on using satellite-derived bathymetry (SDB) and satellite-derived topography (SDT). This work is aimed at (1) determining the accuracy of SDT and (2) assessing the suitability of the SDT and SDB for extreme water level modelling of estuaries. The SDT was created by extracting the waterline as it tracks over the topography with changing tides. The method was applied to four different estuaries in Aotearoa / New Zealand: Whitianga, Maketū, Ōhiwa and Tauranga harbours. Results show that the waterline method provides similar topography to the lidar with a root-mean-square error equal to 0.2 m, and it is slightly improved when two correction methods are applied to the topography derivations: the removal of statistical bias (0.02 m improvement) and hydrodynamic modelling correction of waterline elevation (0.01 m improvement). The use of SDT in numerical simulations of surge levels was assessed for Tauranga Harbour in eight different simulation scenarios. Each scenario explored different ways of incorporating the SDT to replace the topographic data collected using non-satellite survey methods. In addition, one of these scenarios combined SDT (for intertidal zones) and SDB (for subtidal bathymetry), so only satellite information is used in surge modelling. The latter SDB is derived using the well-known ratio–log method. For Tauranga Harbour, using SDT and SDB in hydrodynamic models does not result in significant differences in predicting high water levels when compared with the scenario modelled using surveyed bathymetry.