A Survey Method for Drift Ice Characteristics of the Yellow River Based on Shore-Based Oblique Images

Abstract

Acquisition of continuous drift ice characteristic parameters such as ice size, shape, concentration, and drift velocity are of great importance for understanding river freezing and thawing processes. This study acquired hourly oblique images captured by a shore-based camera in the winter of 2021–2022 on the Yellow River, China. The pixel point scale method for correcting oblique images is provided. The 61 lines were measured at the calibration site and the absolute error between the measured value and the calculated value was in the range of 0.009–0.850 m, with a mean error of 0.236 m. After the correction of oblique images, the true equivalent diameter of drift ice during the freezing period ranged from 0.52–13.10 m with a mean size of 3.36 m, which was larger than that of 2.30 m during the thawing period which ranged from 0.20–12.54 m. It was found that the size of drift ice increased with time during the freezing period and decreased with time during the thawing period. The fractal dimension and roundness were used to represent drift ice shape. The fractal dimension ranged from 1.0–1.3 and the roundness ranged from 0.1–1.0. A Gaussian distribution was used to estimate drift ice size and shape distributions. There is a nonlinear relationship between ice concentration and drift velocity, which can be well expressed by the logistic function. In the future, drift ice parameters for more years and hydrometeorological data for the same time need to be accumulated, which helps to analyze the freezing and thawing patterns of river ice.