New Interactive Tool Unleashes 'Goldmine' of Drought And Flooding Data
lterrat's bookmarks 2016-12-30
Summary:
"A new tool provides easy access to information about water in lakes, rivers and coastal areas around the world based on millions of satellite images.
The Global Surface Water Explorer, developed by the European Union and Google, is a new online interactive mapping tool that lets you zoom in on any area around the world. The tool shows the local changes in surface water over the past 32 years.
According to the Commission, the data sets reveal that many of the changes are linked to human activities such as the construction of dams, river diversion and unregulated water use. Other changes are attributed to climate change, including droughts and accelerated snow and glacier melt caused by higher temperatures and increased rainfall.
'This new tool is a goldmine. Large amounts of data is generated every second by satellites. However, turning data into knowledge has long been a challenge,' said EU education commissioner Tibor Navracsics, responsible for the European Union’s Joint Research Centre which developed the tool in collaboration with Google."