TY - JOUR

T1 - Quantifying the scales of spatial variation in gravel beds using terrestrial and airborne laser scanning data

AU - Huang, G.-H.

AU - Atkinson, P.M.

AU - Wang, C.-K.

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - Previous studies measured gravel bed surfaces by terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and close-range photogrammetry suggested the presence of at least two different scales of spatial variation in gravel bed surfaces. This study investigated the spatial variation of airborne laser scanning (ALS) point clouds acquired in gravel bed. Due to the large footprint of ALS systems, a smoother surface is expected, but there exists some uncertainty over the precise scale of ALS measurement (hereafter referred to as the spatial support). As a result, we applied the regularization method, which is a variogram upscaling approach, to investigate the true support of ALS data. The regularization results suggested that the gravel bed surface described by the ALS is much smoother than expected in terms of the ALS reported measurement scale. Moreover, we applied the factorial kriging (FK) method, which allows mapping of different scales of variation present in the data separately (different from ordinary kriging which produces a single map), to obtain the river bed topography at each scale of spatial variation. We found that the short-range and long-range FK maps of the TLS-derived DSMs were able to highlight the edges of gravels and clusters of gravels, respectively. The long-range FK maps of the ALS data shows a pattern of gravel-bed clusters and aggregations of gravels. However, the short-range FK maps of the ALS data produced noisy maps, due to the smoothing effect. This analysis, thus, shows clearly that ALS data may be insufficient for geomorphological and hydraulic engineering applications that require the resolution of individual gravels. © 2018 G.-H. Huang et al. published by De Gruyte.

AB - Previous studies measured gravel bed surfaces by terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and close-range photogrammetry suggested the presence of at least two different scales of spatial variation in gravel bed surfaces. This study investigated the spatial variation of airborne laser scanning (ALS) point clouds acquired in gravel bed. Due to the large footprint of ALS systems, a smoother surface is expected, but there exists some uncertainty over the precise scale of ALS measurement (hereafter referred to as the spatial support). As a result, we applied the regularization method, which is a variogram upscaling approach, to investigate the true support of ALS data. The regularization results suggested that the gravel bed surface described by the ALS is much smoother than expected in terms of the ALS reported measurement scale. Moreover, we applied the factorial kriging (FK) method, which allows mapping of different scales of variation present in the data separately (different from ordinary kriging which produces a single map), to obtain the river bed topography at each scale of spatial variation. We found that the short-range and long-range FK maps of the TLS-derived DSMs were able to highlight the edges of gravels and clusters of gravels, respectively. The long-range FK maps of the ALS data shows a pattern of gravel-bed clusters and aggregations of gravels. However, the short-range FK maps of the ALS data produced noisy maps, due to the smoothing effect. This analysis, thus, shows clearly that ALS data may be insufficient for geomorphological and hydraulic engineering applications that require the resolution of individual gravels. © 2018 G.-H. Huang et al. published by De Gruyte.

KW - factorial kriging

KW - geomorphology

KW - laser scanning

KW - upscaling

KW - variogram

KW - Fluid mechanics

KW - Geomorphology

KW - Gravel

KW - Interpolation

KW - Laser applications

KW - Scanning

KW - Shore protection

KW - Uncertainty analysis

KW - Airborne Laser scanning

KW - Close range photogrammetry

KW - Factorial kriging

KW - Laser scanning

KW - Regularization methods

KW - Terrestrial laser scanning

KW - Upscaling

KW - Variograms

KW - Surveying instruments

U2 - 10.1515/geo-2018-0048

DO - 10.1515/geo-2018-0048

M3 - Journal article

VL - 10

SP - 607

EP - 617

JO - Open Geosciences

JF - Open Geosciences

SN - 2391-5447

IS - 1

ER -