The journal “Reviews of Geophysics” has published a seminal paper that reviews the use of optical remote sensing to observe surface water in relation to ecological and hydrological studies: “Remote sensing data have been integrated with in situ river flow to model Spatio-temporal dynamics of surface water. Recent studies have proved that the river discharge can be estimated using only optical remote sensing imagery. This will be a breakthrough for hydrological studies in ungauged areas.”

Image: Detecting, Extracting, and Monitoring Surface Water From Space Using Optical Sensors

“Optical sensors are also easily obscured by clouds and vegetation. This limitation can be reduced by integrating optical data with synthetic aperture radar data and digital elevation model data. There is an increasing demand for monitoring global water dynamics at high resolutions. It is now easy to achieve with the development of big data and cloud computation techniques. Enhanced global or regional water monitoring in the future requires integrated use of multiple sources of remote sensing data.”

SOURCE:
Reviews of Geophysics, Volume: 56, Issue: 2, Pages: 333-360
Chang Huang, Yun Chen, Shiqiang Zhang, Jianping Wu
First published: 21 May 2018
https://doi.org/10.1029/2018RG000598