dataset · Europe
Water/Ice Cover S1 2016-present (raster 60 m), Europe, daily
The Water and Ice Cover by Sentinel-1 (WICS1) product is generated in near real-time at European scale, based on synthetic aperture radar data from the Sentinel-1 constellation. The product provides the river and lake area covered by snow-covered or snow-free ice with a spatial resolution of 60 m x 60 m.
Visit source ↗Source details
Licence: other
Evidence quality: 55.5
Listed in cdse-stac 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
- river and lake ice cover (snow-covered or snow-free ice) · open water extent · water/ice classification raster (WIC) · quality layer (WIC-QA) · bitmask quality flags (QAFLAGS)
- Coverage docs-verified
- Europe (bbox -32,27 to 46,72) · 2016-08-01 to present (open-ended)
- Resolution docs-verified
- 60 m x 60 m spatial; daily temporal
- Update frequency docs-verified
- daily; near real-time, product timeliness PT12H
- Formats docs-verified
- GeoTIFF (cloud-optimized) · ZIP (zipped product archive) · XML (product metadata)
- Access docs-verified
- Licence 'other': Copernicus Land Monitoring Service data policy (legal notice linked). No auth in catalogue entry. Free or paid status not stated in docs. Storage: CDSE S3 (requester_pays false); CREODIAS S3 (requester_pays true).
Useful for
- Use cases llm-inferred
- Winter flood risk assessment: mapping river and lake areas under ice cover for FRA evidence · Hydrological model validation: flagging ice-affected days in river flow records · Lake and reservoir water extent baseline for water resources and environmental impact assessments · Ice-affected river reach screening for civils and hydraulic design inputs
- Audience llm-inferred
- flood consultants · hydrologists · GIS analysts · environmental consultants · water resources engineers
Limitations
- Constraints llm-inferred
- Pixels in radar shadow, layover or foreshortening areas are flagged and not reliably classified · Quality layer includes low and minimal quality classes that need filtering · Classification is limited to the extent of the water mask used as input · Coverage is Europe only, not UK-specific · Licence is 'other' and free or paid status is not stated; check CLMS data policy before commercial use
Evidence
Check upstream coverage, uncertainty and licence before use. Station observations are not forecasts or design levels.