A Quantitative Comparison of Traditional and Image-Derived Bathymetry from Landsat 5, 7, and 8

Though the ocean covers 70% of the earth and is a prime driver of our climate, roughly 95% of it is unexplored. As a basic geophysical parameter, accurate and sufficiently detailed bathymetry is a key piece in understanding the oceans and coasts. Moreover, coastal bathymetry in particular can change rapidly in response to storms, sea level rise, changes in river conditions, and engineering activity.

Because of the expense and time involved with traditional,though very accurate, bathymetric methods, remote sensing imagery-derived measurement is often used as a technique for in-fill or rapid response to bathymetry-changing events. While imagery-based bathymetry has been in use for many decades, the techniques and imaging platforms have both evolved and improved over the years.

Landsat 8, with its added coastal band, 12-bit capability, 2-week revisit, and global coverage, is an important step forward in updating coastal morphology maps and extending them in to less well-known coastal waters. Here, we present results quantitatively comparing Landsat 5, Landsat 7, and Landsat 8 to sonar-derived bathymetry.

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