Woodget_etal_ESPL_Revision3_June2014.pdf (4.03 MB)
Quantifying submerged fluvial topography using hyperspatial resolution UAS imagery and structure from motion photogrammetry
journal contribution
posted on 2019-06-17, 13:04 authored by Amy Woodget, Patrice Carbonneau, F. Visser, Ian P. MaddockQuantifying the topography of rivers and their associated bedforms has been a
fundamental concern of fluvial geomorphology for decades. Such data, acquired at
high temporal and spatial resolutions, are increasingly in demand for process oriented investigations of flow hydraulics, sediment dynamics and in-stream habitat.
In these riverine environments, the most challenging region for topographic
measurement is the wetted, submerged channel. Generally, dry bed topography and
submerged bathymetry are measured using different methods and technology. This
adds to the costs, logistical challenges and data processing requirements of
comprehensive river surveys. However, some technologies are capable of
measuring the submerged topography. Through-water photogrammetry and
bathymetric LiDAR are capable of reasonably accurate measurements of channel
beds in clear water. Whilst the cost of bathymetric LiDAR remains high and its
resolution relatively coarse, the recent developments in photogrammetry using
Structure from Motion (SfM) algorithms promise a fundamental shift in the
accessibility of topographic data for a wide range of settings. Here we present results
demonstrating the potential of so called SfM-photogrammetry for quantifying both
exposed and submerged fluvial topography at the mesohabitat scale. We show that
imagery acquired from a rotary-winged Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) can be processed in order to produce digital elevation models (DEMs) with hyperspatial
resolutions (c. 0.02m) for two different river systems over channel lengths of 50-
100m. Errors in submerged areas range from 0.016m to 0.089m, which can be
reduced to between 0.008m and 0.053m with the application of a simple refraction
correction. This work therefore demonstrates the potential of UAS platforms and
SfM-photogrammetry as a single technique for surveying fluvial topography at the
mesoscale (defined as lengths of channel from c.10m to a few hundred metres).
Funding
This work was carried out as part of a University of Worcester funded PhD studentship. We thank the British Society for Geomorphology and the Geological Remote Sensing Group for providing postgraduate funding awards to Amy Woodget and Bath Spa University for additional financial support.
History
Department
- Geography and Environment
Published in
Earth Surface Processes and LandformsVolume
40Issue
1Pages
47 - 64Citation
WOODGET, A. ... et al., 2015. Quantifying submerged fluvial topography using hyperspatial resolution UAS imagery and structure from motion photogrammetry. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 40(1), pp. 47 - 64.Publisher
© WileyVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Acceptance date
2014-06-09Publication date
2014-08-05Notes
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: WOODGET, A. ... et al., 2015. Quantifying submerged fluvial topography using hyperspatial resolution UAS imagery and structure from motion photogrammetry. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 40(1), pp. 47 - 64, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.3613. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.ISSN
0197-9337Publisher version
Language
- en