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Full catalog/sentinel-3-sr-2-lan-hy-nrt
sentinel-3-sr-2-lan-hy-nrt·dataset

Near-real-time water levels of lakes and rivers (Copernicus)

Sentinel-3 SRAL Land Radar Altimetry - Hydrology (NRT)
ocean ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. The height of inland water surfaces, giving estimates of how high lakes and rivers are sitting.

How it's made. Calculated from the SRAL radar altimeter aboard ESA Copernicus' Sentinel-3 satellites as a Level-2 hydrology product, delivered in near-real time.

How & where you'd use it. Helps monitor flooding, drought, and reservoir levels, and supports water management when timely readings are needed.

What's measured

SentinelCopernicusESASatelliteRadarAltimetryLandEUEC

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2023-09-20 → ongoing
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90

What you can do with it

  • Watch sea-surface temperature and marine heatwaves
  • Spot algal blooms and ocean-colour shifts
  • Support fisheries and coastal monitoring
Official description

This Collection provides Sentinel-3 SRAL Level-2 Land Altimetry Hydrology products, which contains surface topography estimations of lakes and rivers.

Get the data

copernicus_access.py
# ESA Copernicus Data Space — open STAC API (free account)
from pystac_client import Client

cat = Client.open("https://stac.dataspace.copernicus.eu/v1")
search = cat.search(
    collections=["sentinel-3-sr-2-lan-hy-nrt"],   # add _cog or _nc for a format variant
    bbox=(-10, 35, 30, 60),             # your area (W,S,E,N)
    datetime="2024-01-01/2024-12-31",
)
items = list(search.items())            # then read assets with rioxarray / xarray
Browsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.