World Resources Institute - Global Water Watch
Data category
Environmental data
The data offers solutions for:
- Nature-based information: Water
- Physical risk
- Produce high-resolution spatiotemporal and granular (10m) information on the amount of water stored in reservoirs as well as water level and flow information in major river systems
Who are the data users?
- Corporates
- Government
- Investors
- Water resource managers; Media; Researchers; Development/Disaster relief organizations
Brief description of the data offering
Global Water Watch, supported by Google.org and the Water, Peace, and Security Partnership, provides free, globally accessible, near-real-time and high-resolution spatiotemporal information on the amount of water stored in reservoirs. World Resources Institute, Deltares and World Wildlife Fund are partnering to create this data platform. Accessible and reliable water data can help decision-makers respond quickly to extreme weather events, provide early warning for drought or food shortages, manage growing risks of climate change, make societies more climate resilient, and preserve and restore our vital ecosystems and the many services they provide. National and subnational governments can use the data to manage water resources more sustainably, efficiently and equitably. Making this information publicly accessible will hold governments accountable for proper water stewardship and uncover water resource conditions in upstream states and nations that may be reluctant to share data with downstream neighbours.
Where and how do you source your data?
We use multi-annual multi-sensor satellite data, combined with cloud analytics, to monitor the state of small (10-100 ha) to medium-sized (>100 ha, excluding 479 large ones) artificial water reservoirs globally. These reservoirs are of crucial importance to the well-being of many societies, but regular monitoring records of their water dynamics are mostly missing. We combine the results of multiple studies to identify 71,208 small- to medium-sized reservoirs, followed by reconstructing surface water area changes from satellite data using a novel method introduced in this study. The dataset is validated using 768 daily in-situ water levels and storage measurements (r2 > 0.7 for 67% of the reservoirs used for the validation), demonstrating that the surface water area dynamics can be used as a proxy for water.
What is the cost for your data offering?
No cost.