Unlocking the potential of CYGNSS for pan-tropical inland water mapping through multi-source data and transformer

Abstract

Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CyGNSS) data are widely recognized for their sensitivity to inland water bodies. However, the detection of water bodies using single CyGNSS data is subject to uncertainties, presenting challenges for large-scale and accurate water system detection. In this study, we employ CyGNSS data for regression estimation to map inland water bodies. In comparison to previous studies, we incorporate additional constraints, including topographic factors, vegetation information, soil moisture, and latitude and longitude data. Leveraging the U-shaped structure, Swin Transformer, and ContextModule, we effectively extract water body distribution information, referred to as CFRT. Through rigorous performance comparison with prevalent deep learning models, our method demonstrates remarkable accuracy. The generated water percent exhibits notable consistency with the reference data, achieving a root mean square error (RMSE) of 7.15% and a mean intersection over union of 0.778 within the reachable area of the CyGNSS data. Our approach emphasizes the significance of utilizing multi-source data to substantially enhance the accuracy of CyGNSS water system detection.