Study of Dongting Lake area variation and its influence on water level using MODIS data

MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is a new generation remote sensing (RS) sensor and its applications in hydrology and water resources have attracted much attention. To overcome the problems of slow response in flood disaster monitoring based on traditional RS techniques in China, the Flood Disaster Monitoring and Assessing System (FDMAS), based on MODIS and a Geographic Information System (GIS), was designed and applied to Dongting Lake, Hunan Province, China. The storage curve of Dongting Lake for 1995 was obtained using 1:10 000 topographic map data and then a relationship between water level at the Chenglingji hydrological station and lake area was derived. A new relationship between water level and lake area was obtained by processing MODIS images of Dongting Lake from April 2002 to April 2003 and the influence of lake area variation on water level was analysed with the 1996 flood data. It was found that the water level reduction reached 0.64 m for the 1996 flood if the original lake area curve was replaced with the area curve of 2002. This illustrates that the flood water level has been considerably reduced as a result of the increased area of Dongting Lake since the Chinese Central Government's "return land to lake" policy took effect in 1998.