Validation of hydrodynamic model by remote sensing data for China´s largest freshwater lake

Hydrodynamic process in the largest freshwater lake in China, Poyang Lake from 2009 to 2011 was simulated by using the lake hydrodynamic model, EFDC. Results showed that simulated daily average water elevation and discharges consisted with in-situ observations. To better evaluate the model accuracy and solve the problem of field measurements deficiency, remote sensing data were employed to validate and analyze the model practicability more comprehensively. The water surface height and inundation area measured by Radar altimeter ENVISAT RA-2 and MODIS images correlated well with the model predictions, which indicated that the frequently changing dynamics of water in Poyang Lake could be effectively revealed by using hydrodynamic model. Furthermore, remote sensing techniques also provided theory for long-term validation from different perspectives.