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Rapid rating curve uncertainty estimation using hydraulic modeling: use of UAV-derived data and impacts of gauging strategies on uncertainty in hydrological signatures
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DOI：10.3389/frwa.2026.1833490.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
The rapid development of UAV-based river surveying is creating new opportunities to efficiently survey river reaches and collect high-resolution topographic; hydraulic; and surface velocity data for hydraulic rating-curve modeling and discharge estimation. Hydraulic rating-curve modeling provides a physically based approach that can reduce extrapolation uncertainty and constrain rating curves with fewer stage–discharge gaugings. However; despite these advances; how such UAV-derived data can be integrated into rating-curve uncertainty estimation frameworks and the impact of different calibration-gauging datasets on uncertainty in derived hydrological signatures is largely unexplored; limiting understanding of the method's operational potential. This study provides the first application of the RUHM framework (Rating curve Uncertainty estimation using Hydraulic Modeling) using UAV-derived data and the first quantification of how RUHM-modeled rating-curve and discharge uncertainties propagate to hydrological signatures under different gauging strategies. We applied RUHM at two sites in northern Sweden. At the Rakkurijärvi site; RUHM was applied using UAV-derived data from LiDAR; Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry; and surface-velocimetry videos together with bathymetric and water-surface slope data. At the Röån site; RUHM was evaluated under nine gauging scenarios to assess their impacts on uncertainty in hydrological signatures. RUHM constrained rating-curve uncertainty across the full flow range at Rakkurijärvi using only three calibration gaugings; with similar results for SfM and LiDAR topography; using UAV-derived discharge for calibration increased uncertainty but still yielded a reliable rating curve. At the Röån site; rating-curve; discharge; and hydrological signature uncertainties were generally well constrained when calibration included low- to mid-flow stage–discharge gaugings; including for extreme-flow and flow-variability metrics; but the resulting signature distributions did not necessarily overlap for all metrics. These results show that RUHM; combined with UAV-based surveys; can support rapid and cost-effective estimation of rating curves and their uncertainty using relatively few gaugings; while also demonstrating how gauging strategy influences the uncertainty in hydrological signatures derived from hydraulically modeled rating curves and discharge estimates. The approach is best suited to sites with near one-dimensional hydraulic conditions and a stable stage–discharge relation; and we found that careful flight planning was needed to obtain high quality UAV data.
Keywords:
UAV
hydraulic modeling
uncertainty estimation
discharge monitoring
hydrometry
rating curve
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2.8
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360
Citations:
2.1K
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Cited Papers