Hydrology: lake and river surface monitoring

A water basin near Toulouse observed in 2006 by Formosat, the image on the left is in true colours, the image on the right shows the NDVI evolution with time. The water being very dark in the near infra-red, the low values of this index, which appears in blue on the images on the right, correspond to surfaces covered by water.

The real time availability of operational high resolution and high repetitivity data should thus enable to contribute quickly to the monitoring of water ressources available for irrigation.

In the same way, Venµs or Formosat-2 data can be used for snow cover monitoring. An example can be seen here