Global River Color Intensities from Landsat Satellites, 1984-2023

Annual mean color intensities from 1984 to 2023 were derived from Landsat satellite data for global rivers classified as brown-, green-, and yellow-dominant. The dataset includes a global 1°×1° grid vector file clipped to land polygons. It was authored by Nuoxiao Yan and is available under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term trends in river water color based on annual mean intensities from 1984-2023.
• Mapping the global distribution of brown-, green-, and yellow-dominant river types.
• Correlating satellite-derived color data with land use or climate variables for environmental modeling.

Strengths

• 40-year temporal coverage from 1984 to 2023 provides a long-term perspective.
• Global spatial coverage at a 1°×1° resolution for land areas.
• Data is derived from the established Landsat satellite series.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for specific modeling tasks.

Provenance

Source

Landsat satellite series.

Collection Method

Annual mean color intensities were derived from satellite imagery.

Time Range

1984 to 2023

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-02 09:13:01.

Geography

Global, clipped to land areas.