ABoVE: AirSWOT Water Masks from Color-Infrared Imagery over Alaska and Canada, 2017

This dataset provides 1) a conservative open water mask for future water surface elevation (WSE) extraction from the co-registered AirSWOT Ka-band interferometry data, and 2) high-resolution (1 m) water body distribution maps for water bodies greater than 40 m2 along the NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) foundational flight lines. The masks and maps were derived from georeferenced three-band orthomosaics generated from individual images collected during the flights and a semi-automated water classification algorithm based on the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI).

In total, 3,167 km2 of open water were mapped from 23,380 km2 of flight lines spanning 23 degrees of latitude. Detected water body sizes range from 40 m2 to 15 km2. The image tiles were georeferenced using manually selected ground control points (GCPs).