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Full catalog/OPERA_L3_DSWX-HLS_V1
OPERA_L3_DSWX-HLS_V1·v1.0·dataset

Where surface water is, day to day (Landsat + Sentinel-2)

OPERA Dynamic Surface Water Extent from Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 product (Version 1)
hydrosphere NASA POCLOUD Level 3 active Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF
In plain English

What it measures. Maps where open surface water is from day to day, classifying each pixel as water or not, along with confidence, land cover, cloud, and terrain-shadow layers and an elevation layer.

How it's made. Produced by NASA's OPERA project from harmonized Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 imagery, delivered as map tiles at 30-meter detail starting in April 2023.

How & where you'd use it. Used to track floods, monitor rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, and watch how water bodies change through the seasons and after storms.

What's measured

TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE › SURFACE WATER › SURFACE WATER PROCESSES/MEASUREMENTS › TOTAL SURFACE WATER

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2016-01-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byLANDSAT-8 (OLI) · Sentinel-2A (Sentinel-2 MSI) · Sentinel-2B (Sentinel-2 MSI) · Sentinel-2C (Sentinel-2 MSI)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -84, 180, 84
  • FormatsCloud Optimized GeoTIFF
  • 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

This dataset contains Level-3 Dynamic OPERA surface water extent product version 1. The data are validated surface water extent observations beginning April 2023. Known issues and caveats on usage are described under Documentation. The input dataset for generating each product is the Harmonized Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2A/B/C (HLS) product version 2.0. HLS products provide surface reflectance (SR) data from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) aboard the Landsat 8 satellite and the MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) aboard the Sentinel-2A/B/C satellite. The surface water extent products are distributed over projected map coordinates using the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) projection. Each UTM tile covers an area of 109.8 km × 109.8 km. This area is divided into 3,660 rows and 3,660 columns at 30-m pixel spacing. Each product is distributed as a set of 10 GeoTIFF (Geographic Tagged Image File Format) files including water classification, associated confidence, land cover classification, terrain shadow layer, cloud/cloud-shadow classification, Digital elevation model (DEM), and Diagnostic layer. The digital elevation model (DEM) provided as a layer of the DSWx-HLS product (band 10) was generated using the Copernicus DEM 30-m and Copernicus DEM 90-m models provided by the European Space Agency. The Copernicus DEM 30-m and Copernicus DEM 90-m were produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved. The organizations in charge of the OPERA project, the Copernicus programme, and Airbus Defence and Space GmbH by law or by delegation do not assume any legal responsibility or liability, whether express or implied, arising from the use of this DEM. The OPERA DSWx-HLS product contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2023-2025). To access the calibration/validation database for OPERA Dynamic Surface Water Extent Products, please contact podaac@podaac.jpl.nasa.gov OPERA was informed by the Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG), an interagency effort of the U.S. Government dedicated to identifying and addressing Earth observation needs across U.S. civilian federal agencies.

Get the data

opera_l3_dswx-hls_v1_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="OPERA_L3_DSWX-HLS_V1",
    version="1.0",
    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 POCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.