Abstract. Remote sensing and satellite geodetic observations are capable of hydrologic monitoring of freshwater resources. Although satellite radar altimetry has been used in monitoring water level or discharge, its use is often limited to monitoring large rivers (>1 km) with longer interval periods (>1 week) because of its low temporal and spatial resolutions (i.e., satellite revisit period). Several studies have reported successful retrieval of water levels for small rivers as narrow as 40 m. However, processing current satellite altimetry signals for such small water bodies to retrieve water levels accurately remains challenging. Physically, the radar signal returned by water bodies smaller than the satellite footprint is most likely contaminated by non-water surfaces, which may degrade the measurement quality. In order to address this scientific challenge, we carefully selected the waveform shapes corresponding to the range measurement resulting from standard retrackers for the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Envisat (Environmental Satellite) radar altimetry. We applied this approach to small (40–200 m in width) and medium-sized (200–800 m in width) rivers and small lakes (extent <1000 km2) in the humid tropics of Southeast Asia, specifically in Indonesia. This is the first study that explored the ability of satellite altimetry to monitor small water bodies in Indonesia. The major challenges in this study include the size of the water bodies that are much smaller than the nominal extent of the Envisat satellite footprint (e.g., ~250 m compared to ~1.7 km, respectively) and slightly smaller than the along-track distance (i.e., ~370 m). We addressed this challenge by optimally using geospatial information and optical remote sensing data to define the water bodies accurately, thus minimizing the probability of non-water contamination in the altimetry measurement. Considering that satellite altimetry processing may vary with different geographical regions, meteorological conditions, or hydrologic dynamic, we further evaluated the performance of all four Envisat standard retracking procedures. We found that satellite altimetry provided a good alternative or the only means in some regions of measuring the water level of medium-sized rivers and small lakes with high accuracy (root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.21–0.69 m and a correlation coefficient of 0.94–0.97). In contrast to previous studies, we found that the commonly used Ice-1 retracking algorithm was not necessarily the best retracker among the four standard waveform retracking algorithms for Envisat radar altimetry observing inland water bodies. As a recommendation, we propose to include the identification and selection of standard waveform shapes to complete the use of standard waveform retracking algorithms for Envisat radar altimetry data over small and medium-sized rivers and small lakes.

[1] Horizontal acoustic Doppler current profilers (H-ADCPs) can be employed to estimate river discharge based on water level measurements and flow velocity array data across a river transect. A new method is presented that accounts for the dip in velocity near the water surface, which is caused by sidewall effects that decrease with the width to depth ratio of a channel. A boundary layer model is introduced to convert single-depth velocity data from the H-ADCP to specific discharge. The parameters of the model include the local roughness length and a dip correction factor, which accounts for the sidewall effects. A regression model is employed to translate specific discharge to total discharge. The method was tested in the River Mahakam, representing a large river of complex bathymetry, where part of the flow is intrinsically three-dimensional and discharge rates exceed 8000 m 3 s −1 . Results from five moving boat ADCP campaigns covering separate semidiurnal tidal cycles are presented, three of which are used for calibration purposes, whereas the remaining two served for validation of the method. The dip correction factor showed a significant correlation with distance to the wall and bears a strong relation to secondary currents. The sidewall effects appeared to remain relatively constant throughout the tidal cycles under study. Bed roughness length is estimated at periods of maximum velocity, showing more variation at subtidal than at intratidal time scales. Intratidal variations were particularly obvious during bidirectional flow conditions, which occurred only during conditions of low river discharge. The new method was shown to outperform the widely used index velocity method by systematically reducing the relative error in the discharge estimates.

Abstract. Variable effects of backwaters complicate the development of rating curves at hydrometric measurement stations. In areas influenced by backwater, single-parameter rating curve techniques are often inapplicable. To overcome this, several authors have advocated the use of an additional downstream level gauge to estimate the longitudinal surface level gradient, but this is cumbersome in a lowland meandering river with considerable transverse surface level gradients. Recent developments allow river flow to be continuously monitored through velocity measurements with an acoustic Doppler current profiler (H-ADCP), deployed horizontally at a river bank. This approach was adopted to obtain continuous discharge estimates at a cross-section in the River Mahakam at a station located about 300 km upstream of the river mouth in the Mahakam delta. The discharge station represents an area influenced by variable backwater effects from lakes, tributaries and floodplain ponds, and by tides. We applied both the standard index velocity method and a recently developed methodology to obtain a continuous time-series of discharge from the H-ADCP data. Measurements with a boat-mounted ADCP were used for calibration and validation of the model to translate H-ADCP velocity to discharge. As a comparison with conventional discharge estimation techniques, a stage-discharge relation using Jones formula was developed. The discharge rate at the station exceeded 3250 m 3 s −1 . Discharge series from a traditional stage-discharge relation did not capture the overall discharge dynamics, as inferred from H-ADCP data. For a specific river stage, the discharge range could be as high as 2000 m 3 s −1 , which is far beyond what could be explained from kinematic wave dynamics. Backwater effects from lakes were shown to be significant, whereas interaction of the river flow with tides may impact discharge variation in Correspondence to: H. Hidayat (hidayat.hidayat@wur.nl) the fortnightly frequency band. Fortnightly tides cannot easily be isolated from river discharge variation, which features similar periodicities.