Estimating trends in reservoir levels for reservoirs in the lower Nile River basin
Abstract
The Lower Nile River basin has many large reservoirs namely - Lake Nasser, Lake Merowe, and Lake Roseires and Lake Roseires These reservoirs have been the single major source of freshwater for people in the lower Nile countries of Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt as they store water from the Nile River during its flooding season and utilize it for their daily household, industrial, and agricultural needs during rest of the year. If the water levels in these reservoirs drop below a certain level, it will pose a major water security threat to the people of Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. In this study, we plan to estimate water levels in the downstream reservoirs using high resolution Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from 2014 onwards. Through Sentinel-1 data, we estimate water surface extent and from water surface extent, we estimate water level using contour matching with high resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM) at 30 m. Sentinel-1 SAR data provides radar backscatter from Earth at 10 m spatial resolution with a temporal repeat of 6-12 days, depending on the location on Earth. Such high resolution Sentinel-1 time series of water levels at monthly time scale in these reservoirs will help monitor the water availability in downstream countries of Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021AGUFM.H45S1403K