The determination of shallow water depth in high-energy tidal inlets is essential to model and to forecast the navigation channel position or the short-term topographic evolution of beaches. Colour satellite imagery provides, at low cost, complete maps of areas that are difficult to map by traditional hydrographic means due to their size and their rough underwater morphology. In order to calibrate SPOT images to derive bathymetric maps, a simple method applied to shallow waters of a moderately turbid tidal inlet has been carried out. Its development is based on a set of field measurements, including the reflectance of the water and of the bottom sediment, the vertically averaged diffuse attenuation coefficient, and the concentrations of inorganic particles in suspension, of chlorophyll a and pheopigments and of dissolved organic carbon (DOC). From these data, it appears, first, that the water reflectance is directly linked to the depth, and second, that the water reflectance varies slowly with the turbidity in this area for total suspended matter (SM) concentrations lower than 9 mg l(-1). The extinction of light with depth has been characterized in the inlet. The relationship obtained is slightly different from that observed in clear waters. The bathymetric models established for the clearest waters do not calculate the depth accurately. In the contrary, reflectance code adapted to Case II water type, calibrated with in situ measurements, allows us to retrieve depth down to 6 m and for total SM concentrations ranging from 0.2 to 9 mg l(-1). This relationship has been applied to five SPOT images of the mouth of Arcachon lagoon. The accuracy of the derived map has been assessed by in situ depth measurements. The mean difference between measured depths and computed depths is about 20%. This accuracy is adequate to assess the inlet morphodynamics quantitatively, which is necessary for middle-term to short-term mathematical modeling of the 3D inlet evolution. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
