Satellite-Derived Bathymetry with Sediment Classification Using ICESat-2 and Multispectral Imagery: Case Studies in the South China Sea and Australia

Abstract

Achieving coastal and shallow-water bathymetry is essential for understanding the marine environment and for coastal management. Bathymetric data in shallow sea areas can currently be obtained using SDB (satellite-derived bathymetry) with multispectral satellites based on depth inversion models. In situ bathymetric data are crucial for validating empirical models but are currently limited in remote and unapproachable areas. In this paper, instead of using the measured water depth data, ICESat-2 (Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2) ATL03 bathymetric points at different acquisition dates and multispectral imagery from Sentinel-2/GeoEye-1 were used to train and evaluate water depth inversion empirical models in two study regions: Shanhu Island in the South China Sea, and Heron Island in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia. However, different sediment types also influenced the SDB results. Therefore, three types of sediments (sand, reef, and coral/algae) were analyzed for Heron Island, and four types of sediments (sand, reef, rubble and coral/algae) were analyzed for Shanhu Island. The results show that accuracy generally improved when sediment classification information was considered in both study areas. For Heron Island, the sand sediments showed the best performance in both models compared to the other sediments, with mean R2 and RMSE values of 0.90 and 1.52 m, respectively, representing a 5.6% improvement of the latter metric. For Shanhu Island, the rubble sediments showed the best accuracy in both models, and the average R2 and RMSE values were 0.97 and 0.65 m, respectively, indicating an RMSE improvement of 15.5%. Finally, bathymetric maps were generated in two regions based on the sediment classification results.