Damien Desroches, David Youssefi, E. Sarrazin, Roger Fjrtoft, Alessio Domeneghetti, Brent A. Williams, Sarrazin, Emmanuelle, Desroches, Damien, Fjortoft, Roger, Youssefi, David, Domeneghetti, Alessio, and Williams, Brent
The upcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, projected for launch in 2021, will provide global measurements of water elevation for ocean and continental water bodies with unprecedented resolution and accuracy. This article describes how the variations in height and extent of continental water surfaces, as measured by SWOT's principal instrument, the Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn), can be used to derive floodplain Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), in principle with submeter accuracy. The proposed method is based on InSAR processing, refined geolocation, and the so-called bath-tub ring approach. Preliminary results obtained on multitemporal simulated SWOT data are presented.