ACCURACY OF MEASURING THE BOTTOM OF A POND BY AIRBORNE LIDAR BATHYMETRY (ALB)

Abstract. Airborne Lidar Bathymetry (ALB) is a technology for characterizing the depths of shallow-water bodies in relatively transparent waters from an airborne platform using a scanning and pulsed light beam. A bathymetric LiDAR usually uses wo laser pulses: one is a near-infrared (NIR) laser pulse for land topography and the other is a green laser pulse for submarine topography. In recent years, ALB has become more popular in river and coastal surveying in Japan. The accuracy of ALB has been verified by comparison with the results of acoustic sounding or levelling. However, since the comparison with either acoustic sounding or levelling is limited to a partial comparison at a point or on a line such as a cross section, it is not suitable for overall verification for detailed terrain features. In addition, accuracy verification by comparison between the results of ALB's green laser scanning and those of NIR laser scanning has been performed in the past only on land, but not in water. As scattering of the green laser occurs when measuring in water, it is possible to affirm that the verification under actual operating conditions has not been sufficiently investigated. In this study, we conducted NIR laser scanning in a natural pond and an artificial pool when they had no water, and conducted green laser scanning when they were filled with water. Thus, the NIR laser scanning and the green laser scanning could be compared in terms of surface measurement for the same bottom of the water body. It was confirmed that the green laser in water has sufficient accuracy compared to the NIR laser in actual operation conditions.