Detection the River Regime Variation of the Yellow River Based on Remote Sensing Imagery

As the biggest sediment-laden river in the world, the river regime variation of the Yellow River is complicated which results in the difficulty in flood control at the wandering lower reaches of the Yellow River. The problem of the river regime variation detection with multi-spectral remote sensing images is investigated in this paper. Firstly, the flow characteristic of the wandering lower reaches of the Yellow River is analyzed. Then, based on the spectral similarity and the principle of spatial continuity, a main-stream detection approach called Spectral Correlation Dynamic Transmission (SCDT) algorithm is presented. Finally, bow parameters are calculated and the river regime variation is analyzed based on these parameters. Experimental results are in accordance with the periodic river regime variation of the Yellow River which indicates the effectiveness of the proposed method. The method presented in this paper can be applied directly in flood control.