{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,25]],"date-time":"2026-07-25T08:13:20Z","timestamp":1784967200209,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":40,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,28]],"date-time":"2020-02-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1582848000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100012166","name":"National Key Research and Development Program of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["2016YFA0600103"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2016YFA0600103"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100012166","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Although the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) onboard the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) was primarily designed for glacier and sea-ice measurement, it can also be applied to monitor lake surface height (LSH). However, its performance in monitoring lakes\/reservoirs has rarely been assessed. Here, we report an accuracy evaluation of the ICESat-2 laser altimetry data over 30 reservoirs in China using gauge data. To show its characteristics in large-scale lake monitoring, we also applied an advanced radar altimeter SARAL (Satellite for ARgos and ALtika) and the first laser altimeter ICESat (Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite) to investigate all lakes and reservoirs (&gt;10 km2) in China. We found that the ICESat-2 has a greatly improved altimetric capability, and the relative altimetric error was 0.06 m, while the relative altimetric error was 0.25 m for SARAL. Compared with SARAL and ICESat data, ICESat-2 data had the lowest measurement uncertainty (the standard deviation of along-track heights; 0.02 m vs. 0.17 m and 0.07 m), the greatest temporal frequency (3.43 vs. 1.35 and 1.48 times per year), and the second greatest lake coverage (636 vs. 814 and 311 lakes). The precise LSH profiles derived from the ICESat-2 data showed that most lakes (90% of 636 lakes) had a quasi-horizontal LSH profile (measurement uncertainty &lt;0.05 m), and special methods are needed for mountainous lakes or shallow lakes to extract precise LSHs.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs12050770","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,3,3]],"date-time":"2020-03-03T03:13:28Z","timestamp":1583205208000},"page":"770","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":82,"title":["Performance Assessment of ICESat-2 Laser Altimeter Data for Water-Level Measurement over Lakes and Reservoirs in China"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"given":"Cui","family":"Yuan","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1513-3765","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Peng","family":"Gong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China"},{"name":"Tsinghua Urban Institute, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4630-5147","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yuqi","family":"Bai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China"},{"name":"Tsinghua Urban Institute, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,28]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"360","DOI":"10.1007\/BF00879763","article-title":"Changes in the thermal structure of moderate to large sized lakes in response to changes in air temperature","volume":"52","author":"Robertson","year":"1990","journal-title":"Aquat. Sci."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1917","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1119929","article-title":"Changes in Surface Water Supply Across Africa with Predicted Climate Change","volume":"311","author":"Stankiewicz","year":"2006","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"284","DOI":"10.1126\/science.289.5477.284","article-title":"Global Water Resources: Vulnerability from Climate Change and Population Growth","volume":"289","author":"Vorosmarty","year":"2000","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1491","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1089802","article-title":"Tracking Fresh Water from Space","volume":"301","author":"Alsdorf","year":"2003","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"269","DOI":"10.1007\/s10712-016-9362-6","article-title":"Lake Volume Monitoring from Space","volume":"37","author":"Arsen","year":"2016","journal-title":"Surv. Geophys."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Alsdorf, D.E., Rodr\u00edguez, E., and Lettenmaier, D.P. (2007). Measuring surface water from space. Revi. Geophys., 45.","DOI":"10.1029\/2006RG000197"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Van Den Hoek, J., Getirana, A., Jung, H.C., Okeowo, M.A., and Lee, H. (2019). Monitoring Reservoir Drought Dynamics with Landsat and Radar\/Lidar Altimetry Time Series in Persistently Cloudy Eastern Brazil. Remote Sens., 11.","DOI":"10.3390\/rs11070827"},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"307","DOI":"10.1038\/470307a","article-title":"Chinas water crisis needs more than words","volume":"470","author":"Yu","year":"2011","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"54","DOI":"10.1029\/01EO00031","article-title":"Global water data: A newly endangered species","volume":"82","author":"Vorosmarty","year":"2001","journal-title":"Eos Trans. Am. Geophys. Union"},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"25179","DOI":"10.1029\/95JC02125","article-title":"The contribution of TOPEX\/POSEIDON to the global monitoring of climatically sensitive lakes","volume":"100","author":"Birkett","year":"1995","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1098","DOI":"10.1016\/j.crte.2006.08.002","article-title":"Lake studies from satellite radar altimetry","volume":"338","author":"Birkett","year":"2006","journal-title":"C R. Geosci."},{"key":"ref_12","first-page":"149","article-title":"SOLS: A lake database to monitor in the Near Real Time water level and storage variations from remote sensing data","volume":"47","author":"Jelinski","year":"2011","journal-title":"Adv. Space Res."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4345","DOI":"10.5194\/hess-19-4345-2015","article-title":"DAHITI\u2014an innovative approach for estimating water level time series over inland waters using multi-mission satellite altimetry","volume":"19","author":"Schwatke","year":"2015","journal-title":"Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1733","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2011.03.005","article-title":"Monitoring lake level changes on the Tibetan Plateau using ICESat altimetry data (2003\u20132009)","volume":"115","author":"Zhang","year":"2011","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"131","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2013.01.005","article-title":"Water-level changes in Chinas large lakes determined from ICESat\/GLAS data","volume":"132","author":"Wang","year":"2013","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"260","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2016.12.029","article-title":"The Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2): Science requirements, concept, and implementation","volume":"190","author":"Markus","year":"2017","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"13107","DOI":"10.1029\/2019GL085032","article-title":"Tibetan Plateaus Lake Level and Volume Changes From NASAs ICESat\/ICESat-2 and Landsat Missions","volume":"46","author":"Zhang","year":"2019","journal-title":"Geophys. Res. Lett."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"670","DOI":"10.1080\/01431161.2018.1516316","article-title":"Water-volume variations of Lake Hulun estimated from serial Jason altimeters and Landsat TM\/ETM+ images from 2002 to 2017","volume":"40","author":"Yuan","year":"2018","journal-title":"Int. J. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"65","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2018.11.004","article-title":"Influence of local geoid variation on water surface elevation estimates derived from multi-mission altimetry for Lake Namco","volume":"221","author":"Jiang","year":"2019","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"119","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jhydrol.2014.11.063","article-title":"Monitoring of lake level changes on the Tibetan Plateau and Tian Shan by retracking Cryosat SARIn waveforms","volume":"521","author":"Kleinherenbrink","year":"2015","journal-title":"J. Hydrol."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"12","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jag.2011.09.015","article-title":"ICESat derived elevation changes of Tibetan lakes between 2003 and 2009","volume":"17","author":"Phan","year":"2012","journal-title":"Int. J. Appl. Earth Observ. Geoinfor."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"38","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2014.05.014","article-title":"Retracking Cryosat data in the SARIn mode and robust lake level extraction","volume":"152","author":"Kleinherenbrink","year":"2014","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"13603","DOI":"10.1038\/ncomms13603","article-title":"Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes using a geo-statistical approach","volume":"7","author":"Messager","year":"2016","journal-title":"Nat. Commun."},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ma, R., Duan, H., Hu, C., Feng, X., Li, A., Ju, W., Jiang, J., and Yang, G. (2010). A half-century of changes in China\u2019s lakes: Global warming or human influence?. Geophys. Res. Lett., 37.","DOI":"10.1029\/2010GL045514"},{"key":"ref_25","unstructured":"Jasinski, M.F., Stoll, J.D., Hancock, D., Robbins, J., Nattala, J., Pavelsky, T.M., Morison, J., Arp, C.D., and Jones, B.M. (2019). The ICESat-2 Science Team. ATLAS\/ICESat-2 L3A Inland Water Surface Height, Version 1, NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bonnefond, P., Verron, J., Aublanc, J., Babu, K., Berg\u00e9-Nguyen, M., Cancet, M., Chaudhary, A., Cr\u00e9taux, J.-F., Frappart, F., and Haines, B. (2018). The Benefits of the Ka-Band as Evidenced from the SARAL\/AltiKa Altimetric Mission: Quality Assessment and Unique Characteristics of AltiKa Data. Remote Sens., 10.","DOI":"10.3390\/rs10010083"},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Verron, J., Bonnefond, P., Aouf, L., Birol, F., Bhowmick, S., Calmant, S., Conchy, T., Cr\u00e9taux, J.-F., Dibarboure, G., and Dubey, A. (2018). The Benefits of the Ka-Band as Evidenced from the SARAL\/AltiKa Altimetric Mission: Scientific Applications. Remote Sens., 10.","DOI":"10.3390\/rs10020163"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kao, H.-C., Kuo, C.-Y., Tseng, K.-H., Shum, C.K., Tseng, T.-P., Jia, Y.-Y., Yang, T.-Y., Ali, T.A., Yi, Y., and Hussain, D. (2019). Assessment of Cryosat-2 and SARAL\/AltiKa altimetry for measuring inland water and coastal sea level variations: A case study on Tibetan Plateau lake and Taiwan Coast. Mar. Geod., 1\u201317.","DOI":"10.1080\/01490419.2019.1623352"},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"534","DOI":"10.1080\/01490419.2014.1002590","article-title":"Use of SARAL\/AltiKa over Mountainous Lakes, Intercomparison with Envisat Mission","volume":"38","author":"Arsen","year":"2015","journal-title":"Mar. Geod."},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3276","DOI":"10.1002\/2015WR018237","article-title":"ICESat-derived inland water surface spot heights","volume":"52","author":"OLoughlin","year":"2016","journal-title":"Water Resour. Res."},{"key":"ref_31","unstructured":"Loughlin, F.O., Bates, P.D., Neal, J.C., and Yamazaki, D. (2019, December 02). Available online: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.5523\/bris.15hbqgewcrti51hmzp69bi4gky."},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"40","DOI":"10.1016\/j.asr.2014.09.006","article-title":"Sea surface height determination in the Arctic using Cryosat-2 SAR data from primary peak empirical retrackers","volume":"55","author":"Jain","year":"2015","journal-title":"Adv. Space Res."},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"109","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jhydrol.2016.11.024","article-title":"Monitoring recent lake level variations on the Tibetan Plateau using CryoSat-2 SARIn mode data","volume":"544","author":"Jiang","year":"2017","journal-title":"J. Hydrol."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"125","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2017.08.015","article-title":"CryoSat-2 radar altimetry for monitoring freshwater resources of China","volume":"200","author":"Jiang","year":"2017","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Dibarboure, G., Lamy, A., Pujol, M.-I., and Jettou, G. (2018). The Drifting Phase of SARAL: Securing Stable Ocean Mesoscale Sampling with an Unmaintained Decaying Altitude. Remote Sens., 10.","DOI":"10.3390\/rs10071051"},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"87","DOI":"10.1007\/s12145-012-0098-7","article-title":"Quasigeoid-to-geoid determination by EGM08","volume":"5","author":"Bagherbandi","year":"2012","journal-title":"Earth Sci. Inform."},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3465","DOI":"10.1109\/JSTARS.2017.2684081","article-title":"Automated Generation of Lakes and Reservoirs Water Elevation Changes From Satellite Radar Altimetry","volume":"10","author":"Okeowo","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Observ. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1776","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jhydrol.2015.08.009","article-title":"An improved methodology to estimate river stage and discharge using Jason-2 satellite data","volume":"529","author":"Dubey","year":"2015","journal-title":"J. Hydrol."},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"272","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jmarsys.2008.03.016","article-title":"Ice cover and sea level of the Aral Sea from satellite altimetry and radiometry (1992\u20132006)","volume":"76","author":"Kouraev","year":"2009","journal-title":"J. Mar. Syst."},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"240","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2006.11.010","article-title":"Observations of Lake Baikal ice from satellite altimetry and radiometry","volume":"108","author":"Kouraev","year":"2007","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."}],"container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-4292\/12\/5\/770\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T09:02:37Z","timestamp":1760173357000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-4292\/12\/5\/770"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,28]]},"references-count":40,"journal-issue":{"issue":"5","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,3]]}},"alternative-id":["rs12050770"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/rs12050770","relation":{},"ISSN":["2072-4292"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2072-4292","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,28]]}}}