Accurate Discharge Estimation Based on River Widths of SWOT and Constrained At-Many-Stations Hydraulic Geometry

Abstract

River discharge monitoring is an important component of the hydrology objectives of Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission (SWOT). River discharge can be estimated Solely using river widths and At Many-stations Hydraulic Geometry (AMHG), but the accuracy is low due to the parameters of At a-station Hydraulic Geometry (AHG) given by AMHG deviate from the truth. In view of this, a Constrained At-Many-Stations Hydraulic Geometry (CAMHG) is proposed to optimize AHG parameters. The performance of CAMHG is verified in three reaches of the Yangtze River using river widths derived from SWOT. After using CAMHG, the relative root mean square error (RRMSE) of estimated discharge reduce 100.1% to 24.4%, 1137.1% to 49.9% and 48.6% to 45.5% for Hankou, Shashi and Luoshan respectively. In addition, CAMHG can also weaken the accuracy difference of estimated discharge in dry and wet seasons benefited from its more reliable AHG parameters. Thus, the proposed CAMHG can dramatically improves the accuracy of discharge estimations and it is meaningful for the discharge calculation after SWOT data release.