Coastal Topo-Bathymetry from a Single-Pass Satellite Video: Insights in Space-Videos for Coastal Monitoring at Duck Beach (NC, USA)

At the interface between land and sea, the shoreface of sandy coasts extends from the dune (up to tens of meters above the sea level) to below the depth of the closure (often tens of meters below sea level). This is a crucial zone to monitor in order to reduce the uncertainty associated with forecasting the impact of storms and climate change on the coastal zone. At the same time, monitoring the dynamic interface between land and sea presents a traditional challenge for both in situ and remote sensing techniques. Here, we show the potential of using a video from a metric optical satellite sensor to estimate the emerged topography and submerged bathymetry over a single-pass. A short sequence (21 s, 10 Hz) of satellite-images was acquired with the Jilin-1/07 satellite covering the area in the vicinity of the Field Research Facility (FRF) at Duck (North Carolina, USA). The FRF site is regularly monitored with traditional surveys. From a few satellite images, the topography is reconstructed using stereo-photogrammetry techniques, while the bathymetry is inversed using incident waves through time-series spatio-temporal correlation techniques. Finally, the topography and bathymetry are merged into a seamless coastal digital elevation model (DEM). The satellite estimate shows a good agreement with the in situ survey with 0.8 m error for the topography and 0.5 m for the bathymetry. Overall, the largest discrepancy (more than 2 m) is obtained at the foreshore land-water interface due to the inherent problems of both satellite methods. A sensitivity analysis shows that using a temporal approach becomes beneficial over a spatial approach when the duration goes beyond a wave period. A satellite-based video with a duration of typically tens of seconds is beneficial for the bathymetry estimation and is also a prerequisite for stereo-based topography with large base-over-height ratio (characterizes the view angle of the satellite). Recommendations are given for future missions to improve coastal zone optical monitoring with the following settings: matricial sensors (potentially in push-frame setting) of similar to 100 km(2) scenes worldwide; up to a monthly revisit to capture seasonal to inter-annual evolution; (sub)meter resolution (i.e., much less than a wavelength) and burst of images with frame rate >1 Hz over tens of seconds (more than a wave period).

Automated summary

This study demonstrates the potential of using a metric optical satellite sensor video to estimate the topography and bathymetry of sandy coasts. The results show good agreement with traditional surveys and provide valuable information for forecasting the impact of storms and climate change on the coastal zone.