Coupling airborne laser scanning and acoustic Doppler current profiler data to model stream rating curves

Abstract:

The rating curve enables the translation of water depth into discharge through a reference cross section. Errors in estimating stream channel geometry can therefore result in increased discharge uncertainty.

This study investigates coupling national-scale airborne laser scanning (ALS) and acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) bathymetric survey data for generating stream rating curves. Specifically, stream channel geometries were generated from coupled ALS and ADCP scanning data collected for a well-monitored site located in northern Sweden. These data were used to define the hydraulic geometry required by a physically-based 1-D hydraulic model.

The results of our study demonstrate that the effects of potential scanning data errors on the model generated rating curve were less than the uncertainties due to stream gauging measurements and empirical rating curve fitting. Further analysis of the ALS data showed that an overestimation of the streambank elevation (the main scanning data error) was primarily due to vegetation that could be adjusted for through a root-mean-square-error bias correction. We consider these findings encouraging as hydrometric agencies can potentially leverage national-scale ALS and ADCP instrumentation to reduce the cost and effort required for maintaining and establish rating curves at gauging stations.