VIIRS/JPSS1: Monthly Water Storage for 164 Global Reservoirs

164 man-made reservoirs and regulated natural lakes globally are monitored for monthly water storage changes. The dataset provides a monthly time series derived from satellite classifications and models, including reservoir surface area, elevation, storage capacity, evaporation rate, and evaporation volume. Known issues include surface area estimation uncertainties in high-latitude regions and potential overestimation due to lake ice coverage.

Use Cases

• Monitoring reservoir water storage trends based on monthly elevation and storage capacity data.
• Estimating evaporative water losses from reservoirs using modeled evaporation rate and volume.
• Analyzing the relationship between surface area and water storage for regulated lakes.
• Assessing regional water availability based on dam location and reservoir identifier data.

Strengths

• Provides data for a specific, curated set of 164 reservoirs and regulated lakes globally.
• Integrates multiple data sources, including VIIRS satellite classifications, land surface temperature, and meteorological assimilation models.
• Offers a consistent monthly time series for tracking water storage and evaporation.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low; specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are not provided.
• Known algorithmic issues affect accuracy in high-latitude regions and during lake ice coverage.
• The author and organization details are inconsistently reported across platforms.

Provenance

Source

LPCLOUD / NASA's Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC)

Collection Method

Composite of 8-day satellite area classifications (VIIRS VJ128C2) processed with the Lake Temperature and Evaporation Model (LTEM) and GLDAS meteorological data.

Time Range

Monthly time series (specific start/end dates not provided).

Freshness

Last updated: 2026-04-09

Geography

Global