Deriving Coastal Shallow Bathymetry from Sentinel 2-, Aircraft- and UAV-Derived Orthophotos: A Case Study in Ligurian Marinas

Bathymetric surveys of shallow waters are increasingly necessary for navigational safety and environmental studies. In situ surveys with floating acoustic sensors allow the collection of high-accuracy bathymetric data. However, such surveys are often unfeasible in very shallow waters in addition to being expensive and requiring specific sectorial skills for the acquisition and processing of raw data. The increasing availability of optical images from Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles, aircrafts and satellites allows for bathymetric reconstruction from images thanks to the application of state-of-the-art algorithms. In this paper, we illustrate a bathymetric reconstruction procedure involving the classification of the seabed, the calibration of the algorithm for each class and the subsequent validation. We applied this procedure to high-resolution, UAV-derived orthophotos, aircraft orthophotos and Sentinel-2 Level-2A images of two marinas along the western Ligurian coastline in the Mediterranean Sea and validated the results with bathymetric data derived from echo-sounder surveys. Our findings showed that the aircraft-derived bathymetry is generally more accurate than the UAV-derived and Sentinel-2 bathymetry in all analyzed scenarios due to the smooth color of the aircraft orthophotos and their ability to reproduce the seafloor with a considerable level of detail.

Automated summary

Bathymetric surveys in shallow waters are important for navigational safety and environmental studies. In situ surveys with floating acoustic sensors provide high-accuracy data, but are often unfeasible or expensive. Advances in optical imaging from UAVs, aircraft, and satellites allow for bathymetric reconstruction using algorithms. This study applied a reconstruction procedure to orthophotos and Sentinel-2 images, with aircraft-derived bathymetry showing higher accuracy compared to UAV-derived and Sentinel-2 data.