Even though large-scale river routing models However, with the emerging amount of river related remote sensing data (eg ENVISAT, Jason 1/2), which can be combined, through data assimilation, with global-scale river routing. Comparing simulated WSE with the satellite altimetry data remains challenging and can introduce large biases when combining through data assimilation to hydrodynamic models.In order to evaluate the data assimilation performance using erroneous models, we conducted several experiments namely, direct, anomaly, and normalized assimilations to examine the ability of data assimilations using satellite altimetry data. The hydrological data assimilation was performed using a physically-based empirical localization. A normalized data assimilation was carried out as well to realize better data assimilation using satellite altimetry data. River discharge was improved in 62% of the stream gauging stations compared to open-loop simulation. The normalised value assimilation performed better with current limitations of hydrodynamic models than anomaly and direct data assimilation