UAS hydrometry: contactless river water level, bathymetry, and flow velocity - the Rӧnne river dataset

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Hydrology
• Remote Sensing

Background:

• Climate change exacerbates flooding and drought, increasing the need for advanced river monitoring.
• Traditional methods for acquiring hydrometric data are often invasive or lack high spatial resolution.
• Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS) present a non-invasive solution for high-resolution hydrometric data collection.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a large, publicly available Unoccupied Aerial System (UAS) hydrometric dataset.
• To demonstrate the capability of UAS for contactless, high-resolution monitoring of key river variables.
• To validate the accuracy and consistency of UAS-derived hydrometric data.

Main Methods:

• Data acquisition using UAS equipped with radar altimetry, water-penetrating radar, sonar, and Doppler radar.
• Surveying a 10 km stretch of Rönne Å, Sweden, from August 28 to September 1, 2023.
• Data processing into three levels: raw (Level 1), processed point data (Level 2), and referenced point data (Level 3).

Main Results:

• A comprehensive UAS hydrometric dataset covering water surface elevation, bathymetry, and surface velocity was generated.
• The dataset includes in-situ ground truth and legacy data for robust validation.
• High consistency was observed between UAS-derived data and ground truth, indicating satisfactory dataset quality.

Conclusions:

• UAS technology provides a viable and accurate method for high-resolution, contactless river monitoring.
• The presented dataset supports further research and application in riverine flood and drought management.
• The findings highlight the potential of UAS for advancing hydrometric data acquisition in response to climate change impacts.