Water level fluctuations of the Tonle Sap derived from ALOS PALSAR

The Tonle Sap, Cambodia, is a huge lake and periodically flooded due to monsoon climate. The incoming water causes intensive flooding that expands the lake over vast floodplain and wetland consisting mainly of forests and shrubs. Monitoring the water-level change over the floodplain is essential for flood prediction and water resource management. A main objective of this study is flood monitoring over Tonle Sap area using ALOS PALSAR. To study double-bounce effects in the lake, backscattering effect using ALOS PALSAR dual-polarization (HH, HV) data was examined. InSAR technique was applied for detection of water-level change. HH-polarization interferometric pairs between wet and dry seasons were best to measure water level change around northwestern parts of Tonle Sap. The seasonal pattern of water-level variations in Tonle Sap studied by InSAR method is similar to the past and altimeter data. However, water level variation measured by SAR was much smaller than that by altimeter because the DInSAR measurement only represents water level change at a given region of floodplain while altimeter provides water level variation at the central parts of the lake.