Global Surface Water Explorer - GSWE

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre developed this water dataset in the framework of the Copernicus Programme. It maps the location and temporal distribution of water surfaces at the global scale over the past 3.5 decades and provides statistics on the extent and change of those water surfaces. The dataset, produced from Landsat imagery, will support applications including water resource management, climate modelling, biodiversity conservation and food security.

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre, UN Environment and Google are partnering to provide free and open data on water extent in a way that is policy-friendly, so that citizens and governments can easily assess what is actually happening to the world's natural resources, starting with data on water extent as a priority environmental issue. For this purpose, a dedicated interface built on the top of the GSWE was jointly developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, UN Environment and Google.