Remote sensing application to the real time calculation of water stored volume in large reservoirs

In the framework of MONIDRI (Development of DSS on water use monitoring and optimizations, based on the integration of calculation and evaluation models) research project (financed on the basis of Italian research Ministry strategic program), the combined use of The Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager (CASI), and Airborne Laser Terrain Mapping (ALTM) is experimented to retrieve information for real time calculation of water stored volume in large reservoirs. ALTM1210 (Airborne laser altimeter) allows to produce DEM with extraordinary geometric accuracy (elevation points each 20 cm). CASI, with 3 m of geometric resolution, can detect water surfaces with a very limited number of water mixed pixels. ne CASI/ALTM application allows to test and to evaluate the use of LANDSAT 5 TM in monitoring the seasonal level and surface of irrigation lakes, and to estimate the available volumes on the basis of surfaces/volumes diagrams, according to the lake project data.