Water depth inversion from satellite dataset

Within an effort to estimate near-shore bathymetry from satellite scenes, a method based on wave celerity and wavelength estimation is developed. These wave characteristics are extracted from SPOT-5 panchromatic and multispectral scenes. The method allows us to associate the wavelength and the celerity of the same detected wave and to estimate the water depth from the dispersion relation. This technique is tested on Saint Pierre area (La Reunion Island). Results are compared to in-situ measurements and show a reasonable agreement in terms of morphology and a mean absolute bathymetric error inferior to 30 % in intermediate depths (5-30 m range).