IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/nathaz/v103y2020i1d10.1007_s11069-020-03963-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Testing UAV-derived topography for hydraulic modelling in a tropical environment

Author

Listed:
  • M. Mazzoleni

    (Uppsala University
    Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS))

  • P. Paron

    (IHE Delft, Institute for Water Education)

  • A. Reali

    (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

  • D. Juizo

    (Universidade Eduardo Mondlane UEM
    Salomon Lda)

  • J. Manane

    (CONSULTEC Lda)

  • L. Brandimarte

    (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

Abstract

The past few years have seen the raise of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in geosciences for generating highly accurate digital elevation models (DEM) at low costs, which promises to be an interesting alternative to satellite data for small river basins. The reliability of UAV-derived topography as input to hydraulic modelling is still under investigation: here, we analyse potentialities and highlight challenges of employing UAV-derived topography in hydraulic modelling in a tropical environment, where weather conditions and remoteness of the study area might affect the quality of the retrieved data. We focused on a stretch of the Limpopo River in Mozambique, where detailed ground survey and airborne data were available. First, we tested and compared topographic data derived by UAV (25 cm), RTK-GPS (50 cm DEM), LiDAR (1 m DEM) and SRTM (30 m DEM); then, we used each DEM as input data to a hydraulic model and compared the performance of each DEM-based model against the LiDAR based model, currently used as benchmark by practitioners in the area. Despite the challenges experienced during the field campaign—and described here—, the degree of accuracy in terrain modelling produced errors in water depth calculations within the tolerances adopted in this typology of studies and comparable in magnitude to the ones obtained from high-precision topography models. This suggests that UAV is a promising source of geometric data even in natural environments with extreme weather conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • M. Mazzoleni & P. Paron & A. Reali & D. Juizo & J. Manane & L. Brandimarte, 2020. "Testing UAV-derived topography for hydraulic modelling in a tropical environment," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 103(1), pages 139-163, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:103:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11069-020-03963-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s11069-020-03963-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-020-03963-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11069-020-03963-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shokoufeh Khojeh & Behzad Ataie-Ashtiani & Seiyed Mossa Hosseini, 2022. "Effect of DEM resolution in flood modeling: a case study of Gorganrood River, Northeastern Iran," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 112(3), pages 2673-2693, July.
    2. Katerina Trepekli & Thomas Balstrøm & Thomas Friborg & Bjarne Fog & Albert N. Allotey & Richard Y. Kofie & Lasse Møller-Jensen, 2022. "UAV-borne, LiDAR-based elevation modelling: a method for improving local-scale urban flood risk assessment," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 113(1), pages 423-451, August.
    3. Ioan Rus & Gheorghe Șerban & Petre Brețcan & Daniel Dunea & Daniel Sabău, 2024. "Identification of Vegetation Surfaces and Volumes by Height Levels in Reservoir Deltas Using UAS Techniques—Case Study at Gilău Reservoir, Transylvania, Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-20, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:103:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11069-020-03963-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.