Hydraulic visibility: Using satellite altimetry to parameterize a hydraulic model of an ungauged reach of a braided river

Pierre-André Garambois (1) , Stéphane Calmant (2) , Hélène Roux (3) , Adrien Paris (2) , Jerome Monnier (4) , Pascal Finaud-Guyot (1) , Amanda Samine Montazem (2) , Joecila Santos da Silva

1 ICube - Laboratoire des sciences de l'ingénieur, de l'informatique et de l'imagerie
2 LEGOS - Laboratoire d'études en Géophysique et océanographie spatiales
3 IMFT - Institut de mécanique des fluides de Toulouse
4 IMT - Institut de Mathématiques de Toulouse UMR5219

What hydraulic information can be gained from remotely sensed observations of a river’s surface? In this study,we analyze the relationship between river bed undulations and water surfaces for an ungauged reach of the Xingu River, a first-order tributary of the Amazon river. This braided reach is crosscut more than 10 times by a ENVISAT (ENVironmental SATellite) track that extends over 100 km. Rating curves based on a modeled discharge series and altimetric measurements are used, including the zero-flow depth Z0 parameter, which describes river’s bathymetry. River widths are determined from JERS (Japanese Earth Ressources Satellite) images. Hydrodynamic laws predict that irregularities in the geometry of a river bed produce spatial and temporal variations in the water level, as well as in its slope. Observation of these changes is a goal of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite mission, which has a final objective of determining river discharge. First, the concept of hydraulic visibility is introduced, and the seasonality of water surface slope is highlighted along with different flow regimes and reach behaviors. Then, we propose a new single-thread effective hydraulic approach for modeling braided rivers flows, based on the observation scales of current satellite altimetry. The effective hydraulic model is able to reproduce water surface elevations derived by satellite altimetry, and it shows that hydrodynamical signatures are more visible in areas where the river bed morphology varies significantly and for reaches with strong downstream control. The results of this study suggest that longitudinal variations of the slope might be an interesting criteria for the analysis of river segmentation into elementary reaches for the Surface Water Ocean Topography mission that will provide continuous measurements of the water surface elevations, the slopes, and the reach widths.

Mots clés: Braided rivers; Effective hydraulics; Hydrodynamical signature; Satellite altimetry

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Hydrologie

Pierre-André Garambois, Stéphane Calmant, Hélène Roux, Adrien Paris, Jerome Monnier, et al.. Hydraulic visibility: Using satellite altimetry to parameterize a hydraulic model of an ungauged reach of a braided river. Hydrological Processes, 2017, 31 (4), pp.756-767. ⟨10.1002/hyp.11033⟩. ⟨hal-01711044⟩