CRuHM 2017 Congo River Main Stem Processed Field Data: WSE, Bathymetry and Discharge

Large river hydrodynamics studies inform global and regional issues pertaining to biogeochemical cycling, ecology, water availability, and flood risk. Such studies rely increasingly on satellite measurements, but these are limited by resolution, coverage and uncertainty, and their inability to directly measure bathymetry or discharge. We obtain new in-situ data covering 650 km of the Congo’s main stem, including elusive bathymetry and discharge measurements that complement space-borne datasets. Our key findings relate to our water surface elevation measurements which show that spatial coverage of existing satellite altimetry for deriving river water surface profiles may be adequate through the globally important Cuvette Centrale, but is not at its outlet where our field data reveals significant spatial variability in water surface slope. The findings have implications for altimetry-based hydrodynamics studies of other large rivers, such as those that involve estimating discharge or modelling multichannel river hydraulics.