Review of water body information extraction based on satellite remote sensing

The spatial and temporal distributions of water bodies are of great significance for monitoring the use of water resources. The most common remote sensing applications are classifying the surface cover types and analyzing changes in the spatial distributions of these water resources. In recent years, satellite remote sensing data has been used to extract key features such as the location, area, morphology and river width especially for large water bodies or for those in inaccessible regions in high mountains. This not only saves manpower and promotes safety, but also improves work efficiency. This study analyzes methods for using satellite remote sensing data for water body information extraction with reviews of the reflection characteristics of water bodies in various spectral regions of the electromagnetic spectrum; water extraction methods based on radar and optical remote sensing data at home and abroad since 1980; the working principles, advantages and disadvantages of various water information extraction methods; and some challenges of water information extraction applying remote sensing and the key issues to solve these problems. Finally, this paper forecasts future applications of remote sensing for water body information extraction. © 2020, Tsinghua University Press. All right reserved.