Satellite observations are providing evidence on rivers and flood risk [science.org]. Researchers at Germany’s Earth Observation Center have assembled SWIM, a surface-water archive of satellite-derived water masks. The archive provides nearly three years of global coverage from 2024 through 2026, with more than one million water masks at 10-meter grid spacing, and more than six years of observations for priority regions such as Europe [dlr.de][dlr.de]. Highlights: • Flood-model challenge: SWOT observations indicate that human alterations have produced unusual river forms that existing flood-prediction approaches may not represent accurately [science.org]. • Operational uses: The archive can show seasonal flooding, wetland changes, reservoir fluctuations and long-term changes in lakes and rivers for research and public-sector analysis [dlr.de][dlr.de]. • Data infrastructure: DLR processes large volumes of data on the terabyte High Performance Data Analytics platform using a specially developed processing chain [dlr.de][dlr.de]. Sources: • Satellite reveals a world of ‘weird rivers’ shaped by humans - science.org • From Floods to Droughts: Exploring Surface Water with Satellite Data - dlr.de • Von Hochwasser bis Dürre: Oberflächengewässer mit Satellitendaten beobachten - dlr.de --- 📰 Story aggregated by Kagi News