dataset · Other
DE Africa Waterbodies Monitoring Service
The Digital Earth Africa continental Waterbodies Monitoring Service identifies more than 700,000 water bodies from over three decades of satellite observations. This service maps persistent and seasonal water bodies and the change in their water surface area over time. Mapped water bodies may include, but are not limited to, lakes, ponds, man-made reservoirs, wetlands, and segments of some river systems.On a local, regional, and continental scale, this service helps improve our understanding of
Visit source ↗Source details
Licence: DE Africa makes this data available under the Creative Commons Attribute 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Evidence quality: 38.5
Listed in aws-odr public catalogue API on 2026-10-16; relevance/value screened (haiku).
Metadata checked: 2026-10-14T13:20:00.000Z
What's in it
- Data offered docs-verified
- water body extent (persistent and seasonal) · change in water surface area over time · water body identification (700,000+ water bodies)
- Coverage docs-verified
- Africa (continental) · over three decades of satellite observations
- Update frequency docs-verified
- Single historical extent derived from the full temporal range (no recurring updates stated)
- Formats docs-verified
- COG · STAC
- Access docs-verified
- Open; Creative Commons Attribute 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). No AWS account required for anonymous S3 access (--no-sign-request).
Useful for
- Use cases llm-inferred
- Baseline surface water extent screening for an African infrastructure or dam site in a remote area · Identifying persistent versus seasonal water bodies to support a water availability assessment · Desk-based wetland and lake mapping for an ESIA in an inaccessible African location
- Audience llm-inferred
- hydrologists · GIS analysts · environmental consultants · ecologists
Limitations
- Constraints llm-inferred
- Coverage is Africa only, so not applicable to UK sites · Single historical extent, not a recurring time series of updates · Water bodies are not uniformly classified; may include river segments and wetlands · Spatial resolution not stated in the docs · Requires S3 or STAC tooling to access data
Evidence
Check upstream coverage, uncertainty and licence before use. Station observations are not forecasts or design levels.