Julian Leyland (UoS), Steve Darby (UoS), Paul Bates (UoB), Chris Skinner (Environment Agency)
To apply for this project please click here. Tick programme type – Research, tick Full-time or Part-time, select Academic year – ‘2024/25, Faculty Environmental and Life Sciences’, search text – ‘PhD Ocean & Earth Science (FLOOD CDT)’. In Section 2 of the application form you should insert the name of the project and supervisor(s) you are interested in applying for. if you have any problems please contact I.D.Haigh@soton.ac.uk
Rationale:
Measuring and monitoring of river water surfaces is essential for the accurate characterisation of flow and river-landscape interactions, including with complex vegetation on floodplains. Yet, it is difficult to measure water surfaces at scale, with accuracy, even more so during flood events when water spills across large flood plains. The recently launched SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) mission (Altenau et al. 2021) offers an exciting new data set of water surface elevation measurements, but unlocking this potential archive requires careful testing and calibration across a range of different locations. Whilst work in the UK (in which Bates is involved) is focusing on the Severn Estuary, here we seek to characterise water surface elevations across temperate rivers in the UK and/or Europe to study flood dynamics in complex river corridors. If SWOT can be appropriately tested and calibrated to enable the routine generation of near real time water elevations in these systems it will enable us to observe flood dynamics at hitherto unprecedented temporal and spatial scales. This will lead to new understanding of flood dynamics of river channels flowing through geomorphically and vegetatively complex corridors.
Methodology:
This project aims to utilise the state-of-the-art capabilities of the SWOT mission in conjunction with advanced LiDAR technology deployed via UAVs (e.g. Tomsett and Leyland, 2023). The integration of these technologies will enable the creation of detailed 3D models of river environments and ecosystems, providing a comprehensive and scalable analysis of flood risk, with a specific focus on the impacts on fish habitats, riverbank erosion, and local community risk. The core innovation of this research lies in the use of SWOT’s surface elevation measurements and the high-resolution bathymetric data acquired through UAV-mounted LiDAR systems and ground based GPS. This combined approach offers a method to accurately model river systems, capturing both the surface dynamics and the underwater topography essential for understanding flood behaviors. The SWOT mission, with its state-of-the-art technology, provides surface elevation measurements with a level of detail and accuracy previously unattainable at a world level. This advancement is pivotal for developing scalable river models, enabling a more precise assessment of flood risks and impacts on riverine ecosystems.
Location:
University of Southampton
Background Reading:
- Altenau, E.H., Pavelsky, T.M., Durand, M.T., Yang, X., Frasson, R.P.D.M. and Bendezu, L., 2021. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) Mission River Database (SWORD): A global river network for satellite data products. Water Resources Research, 57(7), p.e2021WR030054.
- Tomsett, C. and Leyland, J., 2023. Using repeat UAV-based laser scanning and multispectral imagery to explore eco-geomorphic feedbacks along a river corridor. Earth Surface Dynamics, 11(6), pp.1223-1249.
Contact Email:
