Measurement of Yangtze River's Water Level by Tiangong-2 Interferometric Imaging Radar Altimeter

The interferometric imaging radar altimeter (InIRA) onboard Chinese Tiangong-2 Space Laboratory is a Ku-Band two-channel interferometric radar, which mainly aims to measure the sea surface height (SSH), and also inland water (lakes and rivers) as well. Due to it takes near-nadir incidence (1° ~ 8°) and short interferometric baseline, the acquired images exhibit quite different features from any other SAR images, especially for water bodies, and based on which, a river water surface elevation (WSE) extraction method was presented in the paper without using hydrologic river mask and only using Tiangong-2 InIRA data. This preliminary result well demonstrates the capability of Tiangong-2 InIRA for inland water monitoring.