Digital Mapping of Waterway Hydrodynamics, Banks, and Floodplain Using Imagery

Sound scientific understanding of the river hydro-geomorphological changes requires good measurements of the dynamics between the interacting river components over time scales commensurate with their interaction. While great progress has been made for quantifying this interaction, there are still considerable measurement limitations to simultaneously acquire information about the river water body and the adjacent banks and flood plains. We propose a new, innovative method that easily quantifies and documents waterway features in the vicinity of bridges using photo imagery. This method combines concepts of image processing and image velocimetry to provide quantitative information on the floodplain topography and texture, as well as of the river hydrodynamics at obstructed and un-obstructed waterways sites. Images are collected by photographing bridge surroundings. Customized software provides means of assembling these photos in a composite distortion-free panoramic image that can be stored in electronic format. Large-scale Particle Image Velocimetry techniques are used to measure the free-surface velocity of the waterway. The proposed tool facilitates routine bridge inspections, bank erosion studies, and provides quantitative information for a variety of geomorphic and hydraulic waterway parameters.