Surface Water Extent Measurements Made by Earth Observation Satellites

CEOS EO HANDBOOK – MEASUREMENT INSTRUMENTS

Measurements > Land >
Inland Waters >
Surface Water Extent

Measurement Definition*: The spatial extent of water on the surface of the Earth such as in a river, lake, ponds, wetland, or the ocean, as well as inundation due to flooding.

Instrument	Status/ Accuracy	Instrument Description	Measurement Technology	Timeline
ETM+ Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus	Operational	Measures surface radiance and emittance, land cover state, and change (e.g., vegetation type). Used as multi-purpose imagery for land applications.	n/a
OLI Operational Land Imager	Operational	Measures surface radiance, land cover state, and change (e.g., vegetation type). Used as multi-purpose imagery for land applications.	n/a
OLI-2 Operational Land Imager 2	Operational	Measures surface radiance, land cover state, and change (e.g., vegetation type). Used as multi-purpose imagery for land applications.	n/a
TIRS Thermal Infrared Sensor	Operational	Measures longwave thermal infrared surface emittance, land cover state, and change. Used as multipurpose imagery for land applications.	n/a
TIRS-2 Thermal Infrared Sensor 2	Operational	Measures longwave thermal infrared surface emittance, land cover state, and change. Used as multipurpose imagery for land applications. TIRS-2 will adhere to the Landsat 8 TIRS instrument performance specifications but will be built to NASA Class-B instrument standards (including a 5-year design life).	n/a
PLATiNO TIR PLATiNO TIR	Being developed	Developed by Leonardo and SITAEL, PLATiNO-2 TIR will acquire images that will be used to provide valuable services for territories control and protection such as monitoring waters, glaciers, pollutants, state of crops and vegetation, energy consumption in urban areas. PLATiNO-2 is also equipped with the magnetically shielded HT 100, an improved version of SITAEL electric thruster, making PLATiNO-2 one of the first missions in the world to observe the Earth in the Thermal Infrared from a very low	n/a
SAR (CAS500-5) SAR (CAS500-5)	Being developed	High resolution radar for water resource monitoring	n/a
LandIS Landsat Next Instrument Suite	Proposed	Measures surface radiance, land cover state and change (e.g., vegetation type), and longwave termal infrared surface emittance. Used as multi-purpose imagery for land applications.	n/a

* Description adapted from WMO.