An Application of the SRTM Dataset in Inland Water Stage Measurement

For hydrologic applications, lake levels is very important. As a first step in developing a remote-sensing based approach, lake stage estimation using remote sensing was proposed with the SRTM data from February 2000, which was providing a one-time snapshot. After several steps using contouring, masking, and CED, it was found that iterative contour fitting to a lake outline provided the outstanding result with the operator's decision. If the lake size is large enough, a constant meter of the difference removal due to bias found by Bhang et al. (2007) might be useful for more accurate estimations for the methods. A lake-level snapshot using SRTM data could provide estimates within 0.5 m level of accuracy for large lakes (> $10km^2$) with contouring. Also, even if the processing algorithm is complex, the accuracy was reliable. Overall, we confirmed that this study would provide useful information to ameliorate the quality of the SAR-derived DEMs specifically for water areas and if more expanded, SAR images can fruit result in water monitoring.