High-Resolution Intertidal Topography from Sentinel-2 Multi-Spectral Imagery: Synergy between Remote Sensing and Numerical Modeling

The intertidal zones are well recognized for their dynamic nature and role in near-shore hydrodynamics. The intertidal topography is poorly mapped worldwide due to the high cost of associated field campaigns. Here we present a combination of remote-sensing and hydrodynamic modeling to overcome the lack of in situ measurements. We derive a digital elevation model (DEM) by linking the corresponding water level to a sample of shorelines at various stages of the tide. Our shoreline detection method is fully automatic and capable of processing high-resolution imagery from state-of-the-art satellite missions, e.g., Sentinel-2. We demonstrate the use of a tidal model to infer the corresponding water level in each shoreline pixel at the sampled timestamp. As a test case, this methodology…