Earth Observation-Water Toolkit: Water Surface Area Time-Series from Satellite Imagery

A GitHub repository containing Python scripts and an algorithm for mapping water surface area time-series. The toolkit uses Google Earth Engine to process Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery for user-defined waterbody polygons. It was published by the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and was last updated in June 2026.

Use Cases

• Monitor long-term changes in reservoir or lake size based on the water surface area time-series algorithm.
• Assess drought or flood impacts on specific waterbodies using the automated polygon-based extraction tool.
• Validate hydrological models with observed water extent data derived from Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery.

Strengths

• Algorithm is designed for both Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellite data sources.
• Includes detailed documentation for running the tool on input waterbodies.
• License is CC-BY-4.0, permitting sharing and adaptation.

Limitations

• The dataset is a code repository; actual data output depends on user input and Google Earth Engine access.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

Collection Method

Algorithmic processing of satellite imagery from Landsat and Sentinel-2 via Google Earth Engine.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-01 13:37:13.806055; freshness should be verified.