Water Level Detection in Coastal Areas with GEDI and ICESat-2 LiDAR Data

An accuracy assessment of spaceborne LiDAR data from the GEDI and ICESat-2 satellites for measuring water surface elevation. The study evaluates data across ten coastal bays on the Atlantic coast of the United States, showing ICESat-2 measurements have a root mean squared error of 0.08 m, while GEDI has 0.42 m but provides denser coverage. The dataset, authored by Adriana Parra and last updated in April 2026, is shared under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Benchmarking satellite-derived water level accuracy based on reported RMSE values for GEDI and ICESat-2.
• Analyzing trade-offs between measurement accuracy and spatial/temporal coverage for coastal applications.
• Augmenting in-situ water level gauge networks with satellite data as suggested by the study's conclusion.
• Investigating the impact of environmental factors like solar elevation and wind speed on LiDAR measurement error.

Strengths

• Provides direct accuracy metrics: ICESat-2 RMSE of 0.08 m and GEDI RMSE of 0.42 m.
• Focuses on a specific geographic area: ten coastal bays on the U.S. Atlantic coast.
• Evaluates two distinct satellite LiDAR systems (GEDI and ICESat-2) for comparative analysis.
• Released under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; data structure must be inferred after download.
• The 14.0 MB size suggests the dataset is relatively small, potentially limiting scope.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the study's focus on the U.S. Atlantic coast.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Adriana Parra.

Collection Method

Evaluation of satellite LiDAR data from GEDI and ICESat-2 instruments.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04 15 11:18:00.

Geography

Ten coastal bays on the Atlantic coast of the United States of America.