Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/MYD28C3
MYD28C3·v061·dataset

Reservoir and lake surface area, monthly (Aqua)

MODIS/Aqua Water Reservoir Monthly L3 Global V061
hydrosphere NASA LPCLOUD Level 3 active HDF-EOS2
In plain English

What it measures. Monthly figures for 164 large reservoirs and regulated lakes worldwide, including surface area, water level, stored volume, and how much water is lost to evaporation.

How it's made. Built by combining the 8-day area measurements from the companion Aqua/MODIS product into monthly summaries, then adding evaporation estimates from a lake model fed by surface-temperature and weather data.

How & where you'd use it. Helps track reservoir water storage and evaporation losses over months, useful for water management and drought and hydrology studies.

What's measured

TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE › SURFACE WATER › SURFACE WATER FEATURES › LAKES/RESERVOIRSTERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE › SURFACE WATER › SURFACE WATER PROCESSES/MEASUREMENTS › TOTAL SURFACE WATERLAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHY › TERRAIN ELEVATION › BED ELEVATIONTERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE › SURFACE WATER › SURFACE WATER PROCESSES/MEASUREMENTS › WATER SURFACE HEIGHT

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2002-07-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byAqua (MODIS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsHDF-EOS2
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Follow rainfall, floods and surface-water extent
  • Track soil moisture and the onset of drought
  • Monitor lakes, rivers and groundwater storage
Official description

The Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Water Reservoir Monthly Level 3 (L3) Global (MYD28C3) Version 6.1 product provides current data for 151 man-made reservoirs and 13 regulated natural lakes for a total of 164 reservoirs. The MYD28C3 Version 6.1 data product is a composite of the 8-day area classifications from [MYD28C2](https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/myd28c2v061/), which is converted to provide monthly elevation and water storage. [Lake Temperature and Evaporation Model (LTEM)](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2020.112104) via MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST) ([MYD21](https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/myd21v061/)) and meteorological data from [Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS)](https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/hydro/data/gldas-global-land-data-assimilation-system-data) are used to produce monthly evaporation rates and volume losses. The MYD28C3 data product contains a single layer with information about the reservoir identifier, dam location (longitude and latitude), monthly reservoir area, elevation, storage capacity, evaporation rate, and evaporation volume. Known Issues * Water occurrence images generally show smaller surface area dynamics in high latitude regions, creating pixels with low occurrence values that have relatively large uncertainties. In addition, the quality of raw water area classification can be affected by lake ice coverage typically creating an overestimation of surface area in the enhancement algorithm. This issue will be addressed in a future release of the enhancement algorithm. For additional information about known issues, refer to Section 4 in the User Guide and [MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website](https://landweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/knownissue?sensor=MODIS&sat=Aqua&as=61).

Get the data

myd28c3_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MYD28C3",
    version="061",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LPCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.