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Background

The Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG)-2018 Assessment found that knowing where surface water exists (lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and floods) multiple times a week would benefit all the United States (U.S.) land monitoring SNWG agencies, such as those water resource management and monitoring, and disaster monitoring and response agencies. The near-global Dynamic Surface Water eXtent (DSWx) data product suite uses imagery from 5 optical and radar satellites (Harmonized Landsat-8 & Sentinel-2 A/B, Sentinel-1A, and NASA/Indian Space Research Organisation Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR)) to map the spatial extent of surface water on land at 30 m resolution every few days. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery will aid in mapping surface water extent in cloudy conditions and beneath some vegetation. This SNWG activity is being managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL) Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA) project, who will oversee the development, implementations, and operations. The optical DSWx product was developed in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Further information about OPERA and the DSWx product suite can be found below.  

Status

In production since Apr. 2023. Products are available from the Physical Oceonography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) (doi:10.5067/OPDSW-PL3V1)

Solution Characteristics

PlatformsTemporal FrequencyHorizontal ResolutionGeographic DomainLatencySpectral BandThematic Areas
Landsat 8, Landsat 9, Sentinel-2 A, Sentinel-2 B, Sentinel-1 A, Sentinel-1 B, NISAR, Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT)Sub-weekly30 m; 100-120 m for SWOTNear-global (all land masses excluding Antarctica)~ 3 daysVisible (VIS), Near Infrared (NIR), Short-wave Infrared (SWIR), Microwave (MW), Long-band (L-Band), Short-band (S-Band), Compromise-band (C-Band), Kurz-band (K-Band), Kurz-above band (Ka-Band)Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems, Disaster Response, Earth Surface and Interior, Infrastructure Products/Other, Land Cover and Land Use Change, Ocean and Cryosphere, Water and Energy Cycle

Societal Impact

The DSWx solution provides maps of surface water every few days, enabling flood and drought monitoring, habitat assessment, wetland preservation, and tracking of water use. These applications inform land and water resource management and hazard response and recovery.​

Solution Resources

Need help using this solution? For more information about the DSWx product, visit the following resources:

 

Workshops and Open Meetings

Title and Registration LinkDescriptionDate
Fourth OPERA Stakeholder Engagement WorkshopThe fourth OPERA workshop provides updates of OPERA data products in production, preliminary validation of data products that are near-production, and an overview of upcoming 2025 products. End users will have an opportunity to present their use (or planned use) of OPERA products.July 19, 2024
The Beginning of a New Era of Multidisciplinary NASA Satellite Data Products Enabled by the Satellite Needs Working GroupThe Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG) is a U.S. Government inter-agency organizational body that was established in 2016 to identify the Earth observational gaps and data needs across the U.S. Federal Civilian Agencies. The SNWG effort is a 2-year process in which NASA identifies and ultimately implements a wide range of innovative solutions that benefit the entire Earth Science community. There are currently 19 different SNWG activities underway, with many of the products now operational. In this session, we will invite representatives from the implementation teams behind several of the highly successful SNWG products to describe the new capabilities and where to access the data. This includes the Harmonized Landsat/Sentinel-2 (HLS), which is a cloud optimized dataset that standardizes common data bands from the two satellite constellations thereby effectively doubling the data available to the community. Another SNWG activity is the generation of a global surface water extent product that combines the data frequency of the optical satellites and the cloud-penetrating capabilities of satellite radar for a uniformed and frequent surface water product. Other activities include new radiation and clouds products, global air quality, land surface disturbance, North America deformation, vegetation indices suite with HLS, and planetary boundary layer products.December 13, 2023
Third OPERA workshop: Introducing the OPERA Radiometric Terrain Corrected (RTC) Radar Backscatter and Coregistrated Single Look Complex (CSLC) ProductsIn this workshop, the OPERA team provided an update on the Dynamic Surface Water Extent and Surface Disturbance products. They also introduced provisional RTC and CSLC products. June 27, 2023
Second OPERA Workshop: Introducing OPERA Interim Products and Updates on Surface Water Extent and Disturbance ProductsIn this workshop, OPERA presented preliminary validation results for the surface water (DSWx) and surface disturbance (DIST) products while also providing information on how to access them.September 2, 2022
First OPERA Workshop: SNWG-2018 Surface Water Extent and Surface Disturbance ProductDuring this workshop, OPERA introduced the near-global surface water (DSWx) and surface disturbance (DIST) products to gather feedback from the user community.February 4, 2022