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ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283 – 296

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Comparison of remotely sensed water stages from LiDAR,

topographic contours and SRTM
G. Schumann a,b,⁎, P. Matgen a , M.E.J. Cutler b , A. Black b , L. Hoffmann a , L. Pfister a
a
Department of Environment and Agro-biotechnologies, Public Research Centre-Gabriel Lippmann, Belvaux, L-4422, Luxembourg
b
Environmental Systems Research Group, School of Social Sciences, Dundee University, Dundee, DD14HN, UK
Received 27 February 2007; received in revised form 7 August 2007; accepted 24 September 2007
Available online 8 November 2007

Abstract

Digital elevation models (DEMs) are at the core of most environmental process modelling and disaster management. In flood
inundation modelling, surface elevation constitutes one of the most important model boundary conditions. With the availability of
high-precision DEMs (e.g. LiDAR) and globally available DEMs (e.g. SRTM InSAR) a big step seems to have been taken in terms
of hydraulic modelling application or hydraulic information retrieval from such DEMs, with high potential in particular for
ungauged basins. Comparative studies exist that report on both the validation of different remotely sensed elevation sources and
their use for both hydrologic and hydraulic studies. To contribute to the existing literature on DEMs and hydraulic information, this
study aims at comparing water stages derived from LiDAR, topographic contours and SRTM. A flood inundation model calibrated
with distributed ground-surveyed high water marks is used to evaluate the remotely sensed water stages. The results show that, as
expected, LiDAR derived water stages exhibit the lowest RMSE (0.35 m), followed by the contour DEM (0.7 m). A relatively good
performance of the SRTM (1.07 m), which is possibly linked to the low-lying floodplain, suggests that the SRTM is a valuable
source for initial vital flood information extraction in large, homogeneous floodplains. Subsequent 3D flood mapping from
remotely sensed water stages confirms this but also indicates that flood mapping with low-resolution, low-precision surface
elevation data is hardly possible on the small scale, as the accuracy of the resulting map depends too much on DEM uncertainties
and errors both in the horizontal and vertical directions.
© 2007 International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Inc. (ISPRS). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: LiDAR; SRTM; Topographic contour DEM; Water stage; Flood inundation model

1. Introduction and background
Topographic data, in form of digital elevation models
(DEMs), are a fundamental requirement for many
environmental modelling problems (Ludwig and Schnei-
⁎ Corresponding author. Department of Environment and Agro-
biotechnologies, Public Research Centre-Gabriel Lippmann, Belvaux,
L-4422, Luxembourg. Tel.: +352 470261 417; fax: +352 470264.
E-mail address: schumann@lippmann.lu (G. Schumann).
0924-2716/$ - see front matter © 2007 International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Inc. (ISPRS). Published by Elsevier B.V.
All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2007.09.004
der, 2006). Hydrologic and flood inundation modelling, in
particular, are highly dependent on accurate (vertical
precision in the cm range), high-resolution (cell size
resolution ≤ area of an individual building, i.e. b10 m),
spatially distributed elevation data (e.g. Walker and
Willgoose, 1999; Yin and Wang, 1999; French, 2003;
Charlton et al., 2003; Webster et al., 2004; Haile and
Rientjes, 2005; Wang et al., 2005; Hollaus et al., 2005; Liu
et al., 2005; LeFavour and Alsdorf, 2005; Ludwig and
Schneider, 2006). This is also reflected in extensive reviews
284 G. Schumann et al. / ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283–296
(e.g. Wechsler, 2007) and comparative studies (e.g.
Kenward et al., 2000; Wilson and Atkinson, 2003; Ling
et al., 2005; Hancock et al., 2006; Casas et al., 2006) of
available DEM datasets. However, an important limitation
of three-dimensional topographic data is that of varying
precision. It is sensible to argue that the precision of
available DEMs depends largely on the method used to
derive the datasets. Elevation data can be obtained by
topographic survey, photogrammetry, or remote sensing. It
may be argued that these systems are complementary. For
instance, remote sensing in the form of Interferometric
Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) can provide large area
DEMs but has inherent speckle noise and requires ground
control points (GCPs) to establish height accuracy (Sun et
al., 2003). Arguably, the InSAR system used on the Shuttle
Radar Topography mission (SRTM) in February 2000
currently provides the most complete and robust source of
elevation data at the global scale. Airborne Light Detecting
and Ranging (LiDAR) instruments provide high precision
topographic mapping tools via discrete surface height
samples instead of a continuous coverage across small
areas (Sun et al., 2003). Such high-resolution, high-
precision data may be required for field or local scale
studies or to obtain highly accurate height references.
However, DEM availability, which is often determined
by economic constraints and condition of surveying
environment (e.g. terrain accessibility, topography and
geometry, vegetation cover) may quickly turn the comple-
mentarity of DEM datasets of varying scale and quality
(e.g. airborne LiDAR-, topographic contour-, or SRTM-
DEM) into competitiveness. Therefore, it is important to
assess the robustness and potential of different DEMs for
use in hydrologic or hydraulic modelling and information
extraction at the meso-scale. Also, for ungauged basins,
remotely sensed height data are often some of the only
available data for environmental process modelling and
disaster management.
In this context, it is the aim of this paper to provide a
comparative study on the potential use of different
DEMs to provide useful hydraulic information, such as
water stage (for reviews, see Smith, 1997; Raclot,
2006). Typically, previous approaches have been used
that consist of marking the water–land contact zone
from satellite image data, the spatial position of which
can be transferred to an elevation source to derive water
volume, width, length, area and stage (Gupta and
Bodechtel, cited in Gupta and Banerji, 1985). Cracknell
et al. (1987) used a similar method to find heights above
mean sea level of shorelines from multiple remotely
sensed images and termed it the waterline method. As a
refinement to this approach, Matgen et al. (2007)
combine flood boundary information with high spatial
resolution, high-precision LiDAR data using multiple
linear regression analysis to allow continuous derivation
of remotely sensed water stages.
In this study, an integrated and improved modelling
approach to that adopted by Matgen et al. (2007) is used.
Based on the assumption of steady-state (as satellite image
acquisition is instantaneous and not continuous over time),
the Regression and Elevation-based Flood Information
eXtraction (REFIX) model described in more detail by
Schumann et al. (2007), uses linear, non-linear or piecewise
linear regression to derive spatially continuous (flood) water
stages at the contact zone of remotely sensed flood
boundaries and a DEM, with respect to localised flow
behaviour. Apart from deriving spatially continuous water
flow from remote sensing, REFIX data can be used to
produce a triangular irregular network mesh able to reliably
map flood area, extent and depth. Schumann et al. (2007)
have shown that flood depth can be mapped with an
accuracy of below 20 cm, evaluated with spatially distribu-
ted high water marks in the field, but highlight the impact of
the horizontal resolution of a DEM on the performance of the
REFIX model as a major error source. They conclude that
for small scale modelling a DEM of a grid size of ≤25 m
should be used. They do not, however, investigate the impact
of varying vertical precision of DEMs but merely comment
that vertical accuracy of below 0.5 m seems necessary to
achieve good modelling results at scales ranging from a few
hundred metres to a few hundred kilometres.
Hence, this study builds upon previous work by the
authors in applying the REFIX model to estimate water
stages from an airborne LiDAR-, a topographic contour-,
and the globally available SRTM DEM. SAR-derived
flood boundaries are integrated with the different DEMs
to retrieve water stage data. These data will be evaluated
with water stage outputs from a 1D hydrodynamic model
(HEC-RAS) calibrated with field data.
It is to be expected that the LiDAR DEM will provide
the most accurate estimate of water stages and thus also
the most consistent flood map, given its reported higher
precision for hydraulic modelling (Wilson and Atkin-
son, 2003; Casas et al., 2006) and the fact that HEC-
RAS is conditioned on the same DEM.
Due to the coarse vertical resolution of SRTM
(specified at around 16 m linear vertical absolute height
error prior to the mission and assessed at around 6 to 7 m
globally by Rodriguez et al. (2005)) and its 3-arc seconds
spatial resolution, it is likely that the SRTM DEM may not
be of optimal spatial and/or vertical resolution for flood
studies. However, the large variation in average global
height precision found in the SRTM literature (Table 1)
seems to indicate that the vertical precision of the SRTM
dataset depends considerably on location, terrain
 G. Schumann et al. / ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283–296
Table 1
Varying reported height accuracies for the SRTM DEM
Average height precision Source
over land (m)
16 SRTM mission specification
(Rodriguez et al., 2005)
11.25 Sun et al. (2003)
10 Rabus et al. (2003)
6 Haase and Frotscher (2005)
5.5 LeFavour and Alsdorf (2005)
7.6 Gorokhovich and Voustianiouk (2006)
4.1 Gorokhovich and Voustianiouk (2006)
3.6 Berry et al. (2007)
characteristics and surface feature properties, and so
deserves further investigation.
It is worth noting that some other studies on large
areas have used SRTM data to derive (i) water slope and
discharge with an absolute percentage error of 4.03
(max: 27.35) for the Amazon River (LeFavour and
Alsdorf, 2005) and (ii) water volume and inundated
water surface area of the Three Gorges Reservoir (Wang
et al., 2005). Although similar hydraulic variables are
derived to those generated by the REFIX model, it
should be noted that the methods applied to the SRTM
data in these two studies differ significantly from the
REFIX modelling approach in that the water stages used
in this study are remotely sensed and not ground-based:
(i) LeFavour and Alsdorf (2005) estimate river
discharge using the Manning equation (Eq. (1))
with the slope, S and channel width estimated from
the SRTM DEM but use ground-surveyed water
depth from nautical maps. Also, water slope (S)
should not be confused with the REFIX generated
water surface slope (a) of the regression model. S
denotes the ‘real’ slope of the river whereas a
represents the slope of the regression line based on
remotely sensed water heights at the flood extent.
(ii) Wang et al. (2005) use a flood mapping procedure
similar to that of the REFIX model. However,
instead of deriving water stages from the SRTM
DEM at the maximum flood extent for regression
modelling of the water surface, they use only
uppermost-and lowermost-gauged stages within
the modelled reach.
2. Study site and available data
2.1. Study site description
The study site is a flood prone area drained by the
Alzette River north of Luxembourg City (Fig. 1a). The
285
river and, as a result, the low-lying villages within its
floodplain have experienced frequent flooding in the last
few decades. On the 2nd January 2003 a high magnitude
event with a specific peak discharge of 0.63 mm h− 1
(70.5 m3 s− 1) and a return period of five years occurred.
Fortunately, this flood was recorded by the ASAR
instrument on board the ENVISAT satellite at the time of
flood peak. The remotely sensed flood image as well as
a dense measuring network (recording rainfall, temper-
ature, discharge, piezometric levels, soil moisture, and
water stages) operating over a decade, supplemented by
an extensive field campaign after the flood, provided
detailed flood inundation information.
2.2. Remotely sensed data
For remotely sensed water stage estimation, flood
boundaries and a DEM are combined. A VH-polarised
C-band ASAR image acquired with an incidence angle
of 35° was used to produce the flood extent map. It is
worth noting that determining the spatial position of
flood boundaries from radar imagery is not as
straightforward as could be expected given the specular
reflection of smooth water surfaces away from the radar
antenna. This is largely due to the positional uncertainty
of the flooded zone resulting from image geo-coding
errors (Matgen et al., 2007), and due to wind roughening
and the effects of protruding vegetation, both of which
may produce significant radar returns (Horritt et al.,
2001).
The following three DEMs of varying precision,
coverage and availability were obtained for the study
area (Fig. 1b):
(i) A high spatial resolution, high-precision LiDAR
DEM of the natural floodplain at a spatial
resolution of 2 m and a reported height accuracy
of around 15 cm (RMSE). This DEM is the result
of an ‘eroded’ digital surface model generated
from discrete height sampling.
(ii) A 50 m DEM generated from vectorised topo-
graphic contours.
(iii) The globally available SRTM DEM at a spatial
resolution of 3″ and a height precision of over 6 m
(vertical absolute height error; Rodriguez et al.,
2005). The SRTM DEM has been pre-processed
and is the result of substantial editing (MapMart,
2006).
For validation of surface elevation from the different
DEMs, well-distributed accurate elevation data from the
national geodesy network are available (Fig. 1a).
286 G. Schumann et al. / ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283–296
Fig. 1. (a) Map showing study site location and description and (b) the different DEM datasets used.
2.3. Hydraulic modelling
Hydraulic modelling was carried out on a 10 km reach
of the Alzette River between the towns of Steinsel and
Mersch (Fig. 1a) with the widely used 1D hydrodynamic
HEC-RAS model (www.hec.usace.army.mil). Data from
76 evenly spaced river cross-sections collected through
channel geometry surveying and LiDAR scanning of the
floodplain, along with the geometry of two bridges,
provided the necessary geometric data input. As an
upstream and downstream boundary condition to the
model, a flow hydrograph of the 2003 flood event and a
friction slope set at 0.0005 were used. In this study the
model was set to compute unsteady flow regime based on
the continuity and momentum equations. The friction
force that acts on the system is given by the well-known
Manning equation (Eq. (1)), which relates flow velocity V
(m s− 1) to the hydraulic radius R (cross-sectional area in
m2/wetted parameter in m) according to the given friction
slope, S (m/m). The friction or roughness coefficient, n, in
Eq. (1) for both channel and floodplain are the model
parameters to be calibrated. Manning's equation for
gradually varied flow in open channels is given by:
1 2 1
V ¼ R3 S 2 ð1Þ
n
For model calibration, high water marks measured in
the field at several river cross-sections during the 2003
flood event were used (Fig. 1a). The HEC-RAS simulated
waterline was used to evaluate the remotely sensed
waterline modelled from the estimated water stages.
3. Methodology
The methodology consisted of four different steps:
(i) Assess the quality of the different DEMs.
(ii) Estimate water stages from the different DEM
datasets integrated with the ASAR image using
the REFIX model.
(iii) Calibrate the flood inundation model with field-
based high water marks and evaluate the REFIX-
 G. Schumann et al. / ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283–296
estimated flood waterline with that simulated by
the model.
(iv) Conduct 3D flood mapping from the remotely
sensed waterline.
3.1. Assessing DEM quality
The different DEMs were validated with reference
elevation data distributed across the low-lying flood-
prone area. The height precision or quality of each DEM
is expressed by the RMSEDEM given by:
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
uP
un
u ðERi  EDEMi Þ2
ti¼1
RMSEDEM ¼ ð2Þ
n
where ER denotes the reference elevation data, EDEM is
the elevation data as provided by the different DEMs,
and n corresponds to the total number of reference data
points used.
3.2. Water stage estimation
Water stage was estimated with the REFIX model.
Flood boundaries extracted from the ASAR flood image
were overlain on a DEM to extract elevation data on the
left and right extent at a given river cross-section thereby
assuming, like most hydrodynamic models, a horizontal
water level across the floodplain perpendicular to the
channel. The mean water height data of the left and right
extent at each cross-section are the forcing data for the
regression analysis.
The regression estimated water stages at river cross-
sections and interpolated between sections can be used
Fig. 2. Flow coherence algorithm adopted from Raclot (2006).
287
to generate a triangular irregular network (TIN) mesh of
the water surface (Matgen et al., 2007). The difference
between the water surface TIN and the DEM provides
an actual water or flood depth map.
For waterline modelling based on remotely sensed
water stages of the Alzette River reach, Schumann et al.
(2007) propose a linear regression model of the form:
H ¼adþb ð3Þ
where H denotes the estimated water stage (m a.s.l.), a
represents the slope of the regression (m/m) which of
course changes with stream (bed) characteristics, d is the
downstream river distance (m) and b is the intercept (m).
It is, however, necessary to verify whether or not
uncertainties resulting from the integration of an
‘uncertain’ remotely sensed flood map with coarser
DEMs in terms of both height and spatial resolution are
too large. If so, then the effect may be that the slope of
the water flow is hydraulically unrepresentative for the
river reach under study. In such a case, an algorithm
proposed by Raclot (2006) is adopted that adjusts or
harmonises water height fluctuations in such a way as to
reflect flow coherence. For flow this means that water
height has to decrease with flow direction. Fig. 2
illustrates the automated procedure for flow coherence
adjustment that is applied in this study if initial flow-
incoherent water stages generate an unrepresentative
waterline slope for the Alzette River reach. After
successful application of this procedure, the regression
model given by Eq. (3) is used to generate a more
reliable waterline.
Prior to flood model calibration, the field-based high
water marks are used to evaluate the REFIX-estimated
water stages with the flood inundation model simulated
288 G. Schumann et al. / ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283–296
water stages according to the RMSEREFIX measure
given by:
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
uP
un
u ðHMi  HEi Þ2
ti¼1
RMSEREFIX ¼ ð4Þ
n
where HM denotes the HEC-RAS modelled stage, HE
stands for the REFIX estimated water stage, and n
corresponds to the total number of water stages assessed.
3.3. Flood inundation model calibration
Height precision is of prime importance for hydraulic
modelling, as it constitutes a major boundary condition in
flood inundation models. Therefore, in this study the
LiDAR dataset along with channel surveying provides the
surface elevation for the model. Moreover, it is not the aim
to test the modelling capabilities of HEC-RAS with
different remotely sensed elevation data, as this has been
done before (e.g. Wilson and Atkinson, 2003; Casas et al.,
2006), but rather to investigate the use of different DEMs
to derive remotely sensed water stages.
The field-based high water marks are used to calibrate
the model. During a large number of simulations
(N 20,000) performed in a Monte Carlo-type framework
with randomly generated model parameter sets, the
distance between each observed water level and the one
simulated gives a fuzzy rules-based model performance
between 0 and 1 according to a trapezoidal membership
function (see Matgen et al. (2004) for a more detailed
description of the calibration procedure). The simulation
obtained with the median parameter set values from the
range of sets of the best performing model runs is taken to
evaluate the remotely sensed water stages.
4. Results and discussion
This section is subdivided into three parts. First, the
quality and suitability of each DEM is determined and
commented upon. Then, the results of water stage
estimation and waterline modelling based on the
integration of the ASAR-derived flood extents and the
different DEMs are reported. Finally, after each remotely
sensed waterline has been evaluated with that simulated
by the HEC-RAS model, flood maps are generated from
the remotely sensed waterlines and assessed.
4.1. DEM quality assessment
Due to the reported large uncertainties in elevation of
the SRTM DEM (Table 1), which depend on many factors
directly or indirectly related to location on the globe, it is
reasonable to suggest that the SRTM dataset should be
confined as much as possible to the specific area of
interest. Therefore, in this study, all DEM datasets have
been constrained to the flood-prone area, within which
well-distributed in-situ reference elevation data have been
selected from the national geodesy network. Using these
marks, elevation from each remotely sensed DEM is
evaluated with little variation between the reference and
DEMs observed (Fig. 3). Even the SRTM does extremely
well in comparison to the other DEM datasets.
DEM precision according to Eq. (2) is as follows:
(i) RMSELiDAR: 0.23 m
(ii) RMSEcontours: 0.95 m
(iii) RMSESRTM: 1.55 m
The fact that these error values are so low is related to
the strict limitation of each DEM to the area of interest,
which is a relatively flat, low-lying and small floodplain.
4.1.1. SRTM DEM
Although the SRTM DEM has the lowest precision
and also the maximum error values (up to 3.28 m) and
highest variations (Fig. 4), its overall height accuracy of
1.55 m indicates that it is applicable to large,
homogeneous floodplains to derive useful hydrologic
and hydraulic information. This confirms the observa-
tions of previous work by LeFavour and Alsdorf (2005)
and Wang et al. (2005), for example.
4.1.2. Topographic contour DEM
The performance of the topographic contour DEM
with a height precision of only 0.95 m is surprisingly
Fig. 3. Graph showing the relative performance of the different
remotely sensed DEMs used.
 G. Schumann et al. / ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283–296 289

be used in PUB research. When integrating the SRTM (or

LiDAR) DEM and a remotely sensed flood image, using
the REFIX waterline method, it is possible to get a general
idea on the magnitude of relevant flood inundation
forcing data, though the accuracy and reliability of such
data needs to be verified somehow.

4.2. Remotely sensed water stages and waterline modelling

For water stage and water surface line modelling of the

2003 flood event on the Alzette River, a flood map was
first extracted from the ASAR-VH image. Then, the mean
values between left and right flood boundary elevation
data extracted from each DEM denote the remotely sensed
Fig. 4. Box plots showing the distribution of the residuals of the
water stages and are used to model the flood waterline by
different DEMs. applying the regression model in Eq. (3).
The ENVISAT ASAR image has an initial spatial
resolution of 25–30 m, which was received with a
poor and related to the fact that there is not enough sampling pixel size of 12.5 m produced from multi-look
variation in height within the area of interest to be filtering. After successful geo-referencing to a positional
captured with contours at 10 m intervals. As a accuracy of approximately 25 m (∼ 1 raw pixel) and
consequence, there are regions in the resulting contour image speckle removal with a 5 × 5 Frost filter window,
DEM with very poor interpolated estimations of the flooded area was extracted with the simple but
elevation. Although for this study this DEM turns out nonetheless effective thresholding method (Fig. 1a)
to be of relatively poor quality, better performance is to (Deshmukh and Shinde, 2005). Ninety-one field-based
be expected on larger floodplains with more height GPS marks of the maximum flood boundary showed a
variation. satisfactory fit with the ASAR-derived flood extent
(within 1–2 pixels location error). Water stage data
4.1.3. LiDAR DEM extracted from each DEM at the left and right ASAR-
As expected, LiDAR gives the best performance. Its derived boundaries are plotted against downstream river
height precision compared to the geodesic reference reach distance (Fig. 5). Remotely sensed water stage
data of around 20 cm is within proximity to the product extraction is only possible at river cross-sections, for
specification of 15 cm. This superiority is confirmed by which flooding is detectable on the ASAR image. If
many studies that use LiDAR for either hydrologic (e.g. water stages at other cross-sections are required for more
Charlton et al., 2003; Hollaus et al., 2005; Liu et al.,
2005) or hydraulic modelling (e.g. French, 2003;
Wilson and Atkinson, 2003; Lane et al., 2003; Webster
et al., 2004; Haile and Rientjes, 2005; Casas et al.,
2006). However, two important limitations of LiDAR
are that (i) it provides only discrete surface height
samples and not a continuous coverage (Sun et al.,
2003) and (ii) its availability is very much limited by
economic constraints. The latter limitation poses a major
constraint to flood studies and other investigations that
require high-resolution and high-precision data over
remote or rarely visited areas.
Another point worth noting is that in the context of
Prediction in Ungauged Basins (PUB) studies, field-based
forcing or evaluation data are rarely available. As DEMs
from topographic contours require some sort of ground-
based data to generate contour lines, DEMs from remote
sensing present the only source of elevation data that can Fig. 5. Initial remotely sensed water stages.
290 G. Schumann et al. / ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283–296

accurate 3D flood mapping, they can be estimated using
the derived waterline regression model.
In Fig. 5, the effects of the data uncertainties inherent
in the SRTM DEM (see Fig. 4) on remotely sensed
water stages become apparent. It is clear that there are
several zones of flow incoherence, meaning that SRTM-
derived water stages exhibit a lot of incoherent ‘jumps’
in the direction of the flow, far more than the other two
datasets. Prior to waterline modelling, erroneous water
stages are adjusted using the flow coherence algorithm
(Fig. 2). The results are shown in Fig. 6.
The linear regression equations for waterline model-
ling in Table 2 show that although the flow adjustment
algorithm improves the initial water stage data in
hydraulic terms, the intercept position of the regression
line is lowered in each case, which will of course impact
on subsequent 3D flood mapping where the equations are
applied to estimate a reach-representative water stage at
each river cross-section for the generation of a water
surface TIN. The lowering of the regression line results
from a reduction of the initial over-estimation in water
stages at several locations due to image position errors
near higher sloping terrain. Eqs. (5)–(10) in Table 2 give
the regression model for reach-representative remotely
sensed waterline modelling, before (Eqs. (5)–(7)) and
after (Eqs. (8)–(10)) flow adjustment.
It can be established for each DEM whether flow-
coherent waterline modelling is required. In the case of
the SRTM-derived water stages this largely improves
regression modelling, as is reflected by the change in the

Fig. 6. Remotely sensed waterlines compared to that simulated by the 1D hydrodynamic HEC-RAS model. Flow-adjusted remotely sensed water
stages as well as the level of the field-based high water marks are also indicated on each graph.
 G. Schumann et al. / ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283–296
Table 2
LiDAR, topographic contours and SRTM regression models for reach-
representative remotely sensed waterline modelling, before and after
flow adjustment
Elevation source Regression model
Initial waterline modelling (no coherence algorithm applied)
LiDAR H ¼  0:0009  d þ 225:74 ð5Þ
Topographic contours H ¼  0:0009  d þ 225:96 ð6Þ
SRTM H ¼  0:0004  d þ 225:16 ð7Þ
Flow-coherent waterline modelling
LiDAR H ¼  0:0009  d þ 225:54 ð8Þ
Topographic contours H ¼  0:001  d þ 225:74 ð9Þ
SRTM H ¼  0:0008  d þ 224:3 ð10Þ
coefficient of determination (R2) value. Before coherent
modelling, regression explained only 6% of the
variation of the remotely sensed SRTM water stages.
Increasing model credibility by applying the flow
coherence algorithm means the regression now explains
89% of the remotely sensed water stage variation.
Moreover, the average slope of the field-surveyed
channel elevations corresponds to − 0.00086. Initial
waterline modelling shows that a nearly identical
remotely sensed waterline slope can be derived from
both LiDAR and topographic contours but not from
SRTM (a = − 0.0004). However, applying coherent
waterline modelling generates a SRTM-derived slope
of − 0.0008, which agrees well with the observed
riverbed slope.
Although flow-coherent modelling is not actually
required for all three datasets and also lowers the
regression line, it is applied nonetheless to each dataset
to allow comparison of results.
4.3. Evaluation of remote sensing-based waterline
modelling
The calibrated HEC-RAS model has an overall mean
vertical error of 13 cm when compared to the high water
marks. As the hydraulic model is dynamic and adapts
more easily to hydraulic structures that change flow
behaviour than the remote sensing-based steady-state
model, the former is thought a valuable source of
information to evaluate the REFIX modelled waterline.
291
Fig. 6 shows that indeed the HEC-RAS simulated
waterline agrees well with the level of the field-based high
water marks. As expected, when assessing the REFIX
waterlines with that of HEC-RAS, the LiDAR gives the
R2
best performance followed by the topographic contours
and the SRTM. The accuracy of remote sensing-based
0.96
waterline modelling according to Eq. (4) is as follows:
0.92 (i) LiDAR — RMSEREFIX: 0.35 m
(ii) Topographic contours — RMSEREFIX: 0.7 m
(iii) SRTM — RMSEREFIX: 1.07 m
0.06
It is worth noting that the initial remotely sensed water
stages have been modelled to represent a continuous (high
0.98
magnitude) flow for all 76 river cross-sections, which is
assessed with a hydrodynamic model calibrated for the
0.96 Alzette.
For both the topographic contours and the SRTM,
performance values of the remotely sensed waterline are
0.89
much higher than the height precision values given in
Section 4.1. This increase is clearly the result of
regression modelling, which has the inherent ability to
smooth out most remote sensing uncertainties (Schu-
mann et al., 2007), and the integrated flow coherence
algorithm, which was introduced to adjust incoherent
remotely sensed water stages, thereby increasing the
credibility of remote sensing-based waterline modelling.
However, the LiDAR derived DEM shows a slight
decrease in performance as a consequence of waterline
lowering through the application of the adjustment
algorithm. Initial localised fluctuations due to geo-
coding errors near higher sloping terrain (see Fig. 5)
have the effect of raising the regression line thereby
getting closer to the field-based high water marks. The
initial remotely sensed water stages from LiDAR
(Fig. 5) would not have required any adjustment though,
as there were hardly any considerable ‘jumps’ (i.e.
fluctuations) in water stages moving downstream. The
algorithm was only applied for the sake of comparabil-
ity. If waterline modelling with LiDAR is performed
without forcing flow coherence on the data, then the
RMSE of the REFIX model output is 0.25 m and 0.18 m
when evaluated with the HEC-RAS model and the field-
based high water marks, respectively (cf. Schumann
et al., 2007).
These findings further confirm the superiority of the
LiDAR instrument to derive useful hydrologic or hydraulic
parameter information and suggest its use for high-
precision 3D flood information extraction. For assessment
of floods across large areas where lower precisions may be
sufficient or in areas where high-precision DEMs, such as
LiDAR, are not readily available, the results demonstrate
292 G. Schumann et al. / ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283–296
that the globally available SRTM DEM coupled with the
flow coherence algorithm could indeed represent a
valuable source of information to initiate flood disaster
management. To investigate this in more detail, a last step
consisted of mapping actual flood depths and extent from
the REFIX modelled water stages.
4.4. 3D flood mapping
The flood mapping procedure was briefly outlined
in Section 3.2. Using the three regression models given
in Eqs. (8)–(10), a water stage for each river cross-
section is estimated and used as TIN breakpoints,
where linear interpolation is applied between cross-
sections, to generate an event representative remotely
sensed 3D water surface. An actual flood depth and
extent map is obtained when subtracting the DEM from
the water surface TIN. Individual pixels or areas that
exhibit a negative value, i.e. where the modelled water
surface is lower than the terrain height, are excluded.
3D flood maps for each DEM dataset were produced
(Fig. 7).
The validity, reliability and accuracy of each map are
rather difficult to assess. The level of accuracy can be
given according to a contingency table-based measure
of fit that relates the ASAR-observed flooded area
(Fig. 1a) to that based on remotely sensed water stages
(Fig. 7). The following flood map assessment procedure
which compares the DEM-derived flood maps with that
observed by the ASAR instrument was used and
consists of:
(i) Constraining the area of interest as much as
possible to reduce the easily predictable dry areas
outside the flood extent zone.
(ii) Identifying zones of flood detection uncertainties
on the radar image. Uncertainties may be in the
form of geo-referencing errors, high-sloping
terrain that results in geometric distortions
(Schumann et al., 2006), wind roughening of the
water surface and areas of trees and other sig-
nificant vegetation cover that hinder easy flood
detection (Horritt et al., 2001; Horritt et al., 2003).
Roads and other smooth surfaces that have similar
specular effects can also be confused with flooded
areas. Zones of uncertain or no flood detection
due to land cover can be identified through aerial
photography investigation (Horritt et al., 2003).
(iii) Determining accuracy only in areas where classi-
fied flood pixels correspond to actual flooding with
a very high probability by omitting image zones of
flood detection uncertainties.
Due to spatial constraining (i.e. omission of easily
predictable dry areas outside the area of interest and
areas of flood detection uncertainties on the SAR
image), there is a higher confidence in the goodness of
fit between the observed and predicted flood map.
An improved version of the well-used but sometimes
criticised (see Foody, 2002) contingency table-based
Accuracy measure, termed High Probability Fit (HPF),
is proposed that summarises the assessment procedure
described above:
2P 3
n P
n
PIiR1 P1 þ PIiR0 P0
6i¼1 7
HPF ¼ 6
4 P
n
i¼1 7
5 ð11Þ
PIi
i¼1 AhpG
where i is the pixel index and n represents the total
number of pixels inside the area of interest. PIiR 1 P1 and
PIiR 0 P0 are contingency table variables denoting whether
a binary classified pixel in the predicted map, P, agrees
with the pixel classification in the reference map, R. The
subscripts 1 and 0 are the binary classification codes for
‘flooded’ and ‘dry’ pixels, respectively, in the case of
flood mapping. The subscript AhpG is a newly proposed
spatial constraining variable and denotes areas of high
probability of agreement with ground observations (i.e.
areas of substantial remote sensing uncertainties have
been omitted).
According to the HPF measure, the LiDAR-derived
flood map agrees to 75% with that observed by the ASAR
instrument. Both the flood map from topographic
contours and the SRTM flood map perform similarly
(62% and 59%, respectively). Although the topographic
contour mapping slightly outperforms the SRTM in terms
of flood area mapping on average, it is worth noting that
there seems to be more consistency in area mapping in the
case of the SRTM (Fig. 7). This higher consistency of the
SRTM is directly linked to the way heights are sampled.
Contour DEMs are based on topographic contour vectors
usually drawn at 10 m height intervals, whereas the
SRTM, although of only ∼90 m spatial resolution,
samples heights continuously and thus SRTM DEMs do
not require interpolation. From this it can be concluded
that the SRTM presents a valuable source of important
hydraulic or hydrologic information for large floodplains,
when high-precision datasets are not available.
However, for adequate 3D flood mapping based on a
remotely sensed waterline, two major aspects are of
importance, namely (i) river gradient and (ii) micro-
topography obstructing flooding (e.g. protection walls,
 G. Schumann et al. / ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283–296 293

Fig. 7. Flood depth and extent maps based on modelled remotely sensed water stages from (a) LiDAR, (b) topographic contours and (c) SRTM.
294 G. Schumann et al. / ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283–296
Table 3
Flood mapping capabilities of the different DEMs compared with the
HEC-RAS model
Flood information HEC-RAS LiDAR Topographic SRTM
contours
Area flooded (km2) 2.97 2.51 1.97 2.44
Flood mapping 0.73 0.75 0.62 0.59
performance (HPF)
Maximum flood 5.89 5.69 3.43 4.85
depth (m)
Mean flood depth (m) 0.77 0.65 0.90 1.19
N.B. It is worth noting that in contrast to a hydrodynamic model based
on water volume input and physical laws such as mass conservation
and continuity, a static and steady-state remote sensing model based on
(low resolution) DEMs cannot adequately derive dynamic 3D flood
information such as mean flood depth or, even more so, volume.
dykes, levees), and are, therefore, worth considering with
respect to the performance of the DEMs reviewed here:
(i) Low-precision DEMs should only be applied to
areas exhibiting a river gradient large enough for
coarse DEMs to capture variations in slope. On the
one hand, if gradients are too low, low-precision
DEMs cannot capture the minimal variations in
height difference. On the other hand, if gradients
vary too much, the same limitation is likely to occur.
Consequently, erroneous height estimates deleteri-
ously affect not only the derived waterline but also
the quality of the subsequently generated 3D flood
maps (see Table 3 for a quantitative assessment).
(ii) Micro-topography in the form of bridges, dams,
dykes, levees or protection walls obstructs flood
water and impacts considerably on the accuracy of
the 3D flood map product. Given its centimetre
height precision, it is expected that such features
can only be captured and adequately represented by
a LiDAR-generated digital surface model (DSM),
however this needs to be verified prior to flood
depth and area mapping. Another possibility is to
supplement less accurate DEMs with ground-
surveyed geometries of relevant flood obstructing
features. Ultimately, if these geometries are known,
they can be used as breakpoints to prevent flooding
to be mapped irrespective of such features.
5. Concluding remarks
Rapid flood information retrieval and 3D flood
mapping is vital for effective flood hazard and risk
management. Spatially distributed remote sensing obser-
vations can provide such relevant information. Using the
REFIX model, water stages from remotely sensed data
were obtained by integrating SAR image flood bound-
aries with elevation data from LiDAR, topographic
contours and SRTM. Prior to regression analysis of
water stages, an algorithm was applied to the data that
ensured decreasing water heights in the direction of the
flow. This enabled waterline modelling with an accuracy
of 0.35 m for the LiDAR, 0.7 m for topographic contours
and 1.07 m for the SRTM. The estimated waterline also
allowed 3D mapping of important flood parameters, such
as flood area, extent and depth.
As expected, LiDAR provided the best results. A
surprisingly good performance by the SRTM suggests
that this is a potentially valuable source for initial flood
information extraction in large, topographically homoge-
neous floodplains, which exhibit a gently sloping river
gradient. Topographic contours did not perform as well as
expected, as there was insufficient variation in height
within the investigated flood-prone area for the generation
of a reliable DEM.
Subsequent 3D flood mapping from the remotely
sensed water stages confirms this but also indicates that
flood mapping with lower precision surface elevation data
is hardly possible at the local scale, as the accuracy of the
resulting map depends too much on DEM uncertainties
and errors in both horizontal (i.e. spatial) and vertical
dimensions.
The use of SAR imagery for flood monitoring and
assessment is well known and has been successfully
demonstrated a number of times (e.g. Aplin et al., 1999;
Horritt et al., 2001; Matgen et al., 2007; Schumann et al.,
2007). Being able to extract reliable water stages from
radar imagery at different scales and thereafter generating
3D flood maps through the integration of remotely sensed
flood boundaries with scale-adapted DEMs using the
REFIX method presents an inviting complement to the
direct use of radar altimetry and InSAR technologies for
water stage sensing (Alsdorf et al., 2000). It is clear that in
contrast to altimetry, which measures water stages directly
and more frequently (the revisit time is several days only
for the JASON missions for example), SAR or other
remotely sensed flood boundaries do not provide direct
measurements of water stages and their revisit time is
usually longer (may take up to 35 days in the case of ERS-
2 SAR). However, their integration with a DEM through
the application of the REFIX model provides reliable and
accurate spatially continuous water stages of centimetre
accuracy to be used either for the evaluation of flood
inundation models or the generation of 2D as well as 3D
flood information. It is also worth noting that the current
SAR revisit issue may be solved with more timely data
acquisition that is achieved within hours of receiving a
request in the case of an emergency (Aplin et al., 1999).
 G. Schumann et al. / ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 63 (2008) 283–296
It is shown that identifying areas of flow incon-
sistencies and addressing these appropriately increases
credibility and confidence in results. It can be said that
LiDAR data are at present the most reliable source of
topographic data for precision and small scale remote
sensing based waterline modelling. Topographic contour
vectors are of reasonable accuracy when sufficient
elevation heterogeneity exists to allow the generation of
an area-representative and ‘fit for purpose’ DEM. The
relatively reliable performance of the SRTM-derived
DEM indicates that it provides a promising new means to
obtain important hydrological or hydraulic parameters for
broader-scale assessment of large catchments. Similar
conclusions on SRTM data are drawn by e.g. Ling et al.
(2005), LeFavour and Alsdorf (2005), Wang et al. (2005)
and Hancock et al. (2006).
The undeniable advantage of the SRTM dataset over
any other source of elevation data is that for the first time
continuously sampled height information is freely
available at the global scale. This is particularly
important for PUB studies. However, to derive useful
information on important hydraulic (model) parameters,
such as water stages, remote sensing data uncertainties
and scaling issues need to be well understood and
adequately accounted for. In this study, the promising
results of the SRTM became only possible after careful
adjustment (i.e. confinement to the area of interest and
application of the flow coherence algorithm).
Acknowledgments
This study is supported by the ‘Ministère de la
Culture, de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recher-
che’ of Luxembourg. The LiDAR DEM was made
available by the ‘Ministère de l'Intérieur et de l'Amén-
agement du Territoire’ of Luxembourg and the ‘Admin-
istration du Cadastre et de la Topographie (ACT)’ of
Luxembourg provided the geodesy data used in this
study.
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