An approach to estimating river discharge from space

Multiple-regression analyses of hydraulic data from more than 1,000 discharge measurements, ranging in magnitude from over 200,000 to less than 1 m3/s, were used to develop generally applicable equations that use potentially observable variables to estimate river discharge using remote sensing techniques. Measurement uncertainty analysis indicates that existing satellite-based sensors can measure water-surface width (or surface area), water-surface elevation, and potentially the surface velocity of rivers with accuracies sufficient to provide estimates of discharge with average uncertainty on the order of 20 percent.