Sahel Surface Water Permanency from MODIS 2003-2011

Nine years (2003-2011) of surface water extent data for the African Sahel region at 250-meter resolution, derived from Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery. The dataset provides a gridded estimate of the number of years each pixel was covered by water, aimed at improving regional to global mapping products. It is produced by ORNL_CLOUD and distributed as a single netCDF file.

Use Cases

• Analyzing interannual variability and permanency of lakes and reservoirs using the pixel-based water coverage count.
• Supporting global change studies by mapping the spatial extent of surface water over a nine-year period.
• Informing agricultural water resource planning and disease vector habitat modeling through temporal water body identification.
• Validating and improving regional to global surface water mapping products with MODIS-derived spectral analysis.

Strengths

• Provides a consistent nine-year temporal record (2003-2011) for tracking water body changes.
• Offers a relatively high spatial resolution of 250 meters for regional-scale analysis in the Sahel.
• Uses a defined spectral analysis method on MODIS vegetation indices for water identification.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov indicates established curation and importance.

Limitations

• Key metadata conflicts exist: the last updated date is reported as both 2011-12-31 and 2026-03 13 across sources.
• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are not provided by any source.
• The license is ambiguously noted as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.

Provenance

Source

ORNL_CLOUD, using NASA MODIS imagery.

Collection Method

Spectral analysis of MODIS vegetation indices to identify water bodies.

Time Range

2003 to 2011

Freshness

2026-03-13 00:54:46.528833

Geography

African Sahel region (10-20 degrees N latitude).