SURFACE WATER DYNAMICS OF INLAND WATER BODIES OF INDIA USING GOOGLE EARTH ENGINE

Abstract. Dynamics, distribution and quality of water has a direct impact on environment and its dependent human activities. Regular monitoring of these hydrological processes help in understanding water cycle and better management policy making. Recent increase in remote sensing satellites offer multiple observations with high spatial and temporal resolution, thus calling for extensive use of high end computational resources. Google Earth Engine(GEE) is an open Application Programing Interface (API), which offers free computational resources and satellite data on cloud computational platform minimising the users need for computational resources and data availability. Five year Landsat-8 imagery (2013–18) from GEE database has been used to study the surface water extent of large inland water bodies (surface area greater than 6000 ha) of India. We have used a pixel based classification system to delineate water and non-water pixels. A knowledge based Decision Tree (DT) model has been employed to cluster the classes according to Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI) distribution. We report an anomalous departure from the 5-year trend line suggesting that the maximum decrease of water extent was found in year 2015–2016. Analysis of the decay pattern of reservoirs can provide timely inputs for better policy making and management of water resources. To understand the decay pattern, a Modified Gaussian model fit on time series of surface extent helps to determine maximum water extent, peak extent day and storage cycle of the water body.