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Observing Rivers With Varying Spatial Scales
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Centre national d’études spatiales Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission will estimate global river discharge using remote sensing. Synoptic remote sensing data extend in situ point measurements but, at any given point, are generally less...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7540328/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33041381 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2019WR026476 |
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author | Rodríguez, Ernesto Durand, Michael Frasson, Renato Prata de Moraes |
author_facet | Rodríguez, Ernesto Durand, Michael Frasson, Renato Prata de Moraes |
author_sort | Rodríguez, Ernesto |
collection | PubMed |
description | The National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Centre national d’études spatiales Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission will estimate global river discharge using remote sensing. Synoptic remote sensing data extend in situ point measurements but, at any given point, are generally less accurate. We address two questions: (1)What are the scales at which river dynamics can be observed, given spatial sampling and measurement noise characteristics? (2) Is there an equation whose variables are the averaged hydraulic quantities obtained by remote sensing and which describes the dynamics of spatially averaged rivers? We use calibrated hydraulic models to examine the power spectra of the different terms in the momentum equation and conclude that the measurement of river slope sets the scale at which rivers can be observed. We introduce the reach‐averaged Saint Venant equations that involve only observable hydraulic variations and which parametrize within‐reach variability with a variability index that multiplies the friction coefficient and leads to an increased “effective” friction coefficient. An exact expression is derived for the increase in the effective friction coefficient, and we propose an approximation that requires only estimates of the hydraulic parameter variances. We validate the results using a large set of hydraulic models and find that the approximated variability index is most faithful when the river parameters obey lognormal statistics. The effective friction coefficient, which can vary from a few percent to more than 50% of the point friction coefficient, is proportional to the riverbed elevation variance and inversely proportional to the depth. This has significant implications for estimating discharge from SWOT data. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7540328 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-75403282020-10-09 Observing Rivers With Varying Spatial Scales Rodríguez, Ernesto Durand, Michael Frasson, Renato Prata de Moraes Water Resour Res Research Articles The National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Centre national d’études spatiales Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission will estimate global river discharge using remote sensing. Synoptic remote sensing data extend in situ point measurements but, at any given point, are generally less accurate. We address two questions: (1)What are the scales at which river dynamics can be observed, given spatial sampling and measurement noise characteristics? (2) Is there an equation whose variables are the averaged hydraulic quantities obtained by remote sensing and which describes the dynamics of spatially averaged rivers? We use calibrated hydraulic models to examine the power spectra of the different terms in the momentum equation and conclude that the measurement of river slope sets the scale at which rivers can be observed. We introduce the reach‐averaged Saint Venant equations that involve only observable hydraulic variations and which parametrize within‐reach variability with a variability index that multiplies the friction coefficient and leads to an increased “effective” friction coefficient. An exact expression is derived for the increase in the effective friction coefficient, and we propose an approximation that requires only estimates of the hydraulic parameter variances. We validate the results using a large set of hydraulic models and find that the approximated variability index is most faithful when the river parameters obey lognormal statistics. The effective friction coefficient, which can vary from a few percent to more than 50% of the point friction coefficient, is proportional to the riverbed elevation variance and inversely proportional to the depth. This has significant implications for estimating discharge from SWOT data. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020-09-14 2020-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7540328/ /pubmed/33041381 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2019WR026476 Text en ©2020. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Articles Rodríguez, Ernesto Durand, Michael Frasson, Renato Prata de Moraes Observing Rivers With Varying Spatial Scales |
title | Observing Rivers With Varying Spatial Scales |
title_full | Observing Rivers With Varying Spatial Scales |
title_fullStr | Observing Rivers With Varying Spatial Scales |
title_full_unstemmed | Observing Rivers With Varying Spatial Scales |
title_short | Observing Rivers With Varying Spatial Scales |
title_sort | observing rivers with varying spatial scales |
topic | Research Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7540328/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33041381 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2019WR026476 |
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