Ting Yuan
University of Houston
USA
Title: Diffusion modeling of water flow in the congo floodplains using geodetic and remote sensing measurements
Biography
Biography: Ting Yuan
Abstract
The Congo Basin is the third largest in size (~3.7 million km2) and second only to Amazon in terms of discharge (~40, 200m3s-1 annual average). Hydrological flux in the Congo Basin is of great importance to local and global climate, biogeochemical cycling. Whether water in wetlands comes from upland runoff or fluvial exchange could make a difference in the sediment supplies, carbon and nutrient exchange. The remote location and vast size of the Congo Basin leaves remote sensing tool the only viable and effective tool to investigate its hydrology. In this study, we utilized water surface height from Envisat altimeter, precipitation from TRMM products and Hillslope River Routing (HRR) model derived upland runoff to estimate hydrological parameters including manning’s coefficient n in 1-D diffusion model. Based on this 1-D diffusion model and multiple repeated Envisat altimetry measurements, we will quantify the temporal change in volume of water in Congo’s floodplains received from and drained to its mainstem along the Envisat ground passes.