{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,9]],"date-time":"2026-06-09T00:20:28Z","timestamp":1780964428699,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":40,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"20","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,12]],"date-time":"2020-10-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1602460800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Gernan Research Foundation DFG","award":["DE 2174\/10-1"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["DE 2174\/10-1"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Remote sensing data are essential for monitoring the Earth\u2019s surface waters, especially since the amount of publicly available in-situ data is declining. Satellite altimetry provides valuable information on the water levels and variations of lakes, reservoirs and rivers. In combination with satellite imagery, the derived time series allow the monitoring of lake storage changes and river discharge. However, satellite altimetry is limited in terms of its spatial resolution due to its measurement geometry, only providing information in the nadir direction beneath the satellite\u2019s orbit. In a case study in the Mississippi River Basin (MRB), this study investigates the potential and limitations of past and current satellite missions for the monitoring of basin-wide storage changes. For that purpose, an automated target detection is developed and the extracted lake surfaces are merged with the satellites\u2019 tracks. This reveals that the current altimeter configuration misses about 80% of all lakes larger than 0.1 km2 in the MRB and 20% of lakes larger than 10 km2, corresponding to 30% and 7% of the total water area, respectively. Past altimetry configurations perform even more poorly. From the larger water bodies represented by a global hydrology model, at least 91% of targets and 98% of storage changes are captured by the current altimeter configuration. This will improve significantly with the launch of the planned Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs12203320","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,14]],"date-time":"2020-10-14T21:24:39Z","timestamp":1602710679000},"page":"3320","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":24,"title":["Potential and Limitations of Satellite Altimetry Constellations for Monitoring Surface Water Storage Changes\u2014A Case Study in the Mississippi Basin"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8940-4639","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Denise","family":"Dettmering","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Deutsches Geod\u00e4tisches Forschungsinstitut der Technischen Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen (DGFI-TUM), Arcisstra\u00dfe 21, 80333 Munich, Germany"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Laura","family":"Ellenbeck","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Deutsches Geod\u00e4tisches Forschungsinstitut der Technischen Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen (DGFI-TUM), Arcisstra\u00dfe 21, 80333 Munich, Germany"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6210-5869","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Daniel","family":"Scherer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Deutsches Geod\u00e4tisches Forschungsinstitut der Technischen Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen (DGFI-TUM), Arcisstra\u00dfe 21, 80333 Munich, Germany"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4741-3449","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Christian","family":"Schwatke","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Deutsches Geod\u00e4tisches Forschungsinstitut der Technischen Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen (DGFI-TUM), Arcisstra\u00dfe 21, 80333 Munich, Germany"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Christoph","family":"Niemann","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Goethe Universit\u00e4t, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6, 60323 Frankfurt, Germany"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,10,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Gleick, P. 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