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Description

The NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Water Reservoir 8-day Level 3 (L3) Global (VNP28C2) Version 2 product provides current data for 151 man-made reservoirs and 13 regulated natural lakes for a total of 164 reservoirs.

The VNP28C2 data product provides an 8-day time series of surface area, elevation, and water storage. Datasets are combined with pre-established Area-Elevation (A-E) curves and image classifications of near-infrared (NIR) reflectance from the surface reflectance product acquired by the VIIRS satellite (VNP09H1).

The VNP28C2 data product consists of a single layer with information about the reservoir identifier, dam location (longitude and latitude), reservoir surface area, elevation, and water storage capacity.

Known Issues

  • Water occurrence images generally show smaller surface area dynamics in high latitude regions, creating pixels with low occurrence values that have relatively large uncertainties. In addition, the quality of raw water area classification can be affected by lake ice coverage typically creating an overestimation of surface area in the enhancement algorithm. This issue will be addressed in a future release of the enhancement algorithm. For additional information about known issues, refer to the User Guide.

Product Summary

Platforms
Suomi-NPP
Instruments
VIIRS
Spatial Extent

N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180

Geographic Region
GLOBAL
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
GEODETIC
Temporal Extent
2012-01-17 to Present
Temporal Resolution
8 Day
Data Partner
Land Science Investigator-led Processing System, Terrestrial Information Systems Laboratory, Earth Sciences Division, Sciences and Exploration Directorate, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA (NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/TISL/LandSIPS) ,
Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC)
Concept ID
C2696214154-LPCLOUD
Data State
ACTIVE
Number of Files/Granules
634
Processing Level
3
Published
Updated
Science Keywords
Lakes/Reservoirs

Citation

Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.

Copy Citation

Gao, H. (2024). VIIRS/NPP Water Reservoir Area 8-day L3 Global V002 [Data set]. NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/VIIRS/VNP28C2.002 Date Accessed: 2025-12-13

File Naming Convention

VNP28C2.A2025217.002.2025229150738.h5

The file name begins with the Product Short Name (VNP28C2) followed by the Julian Date of Acquisition formatted as AYYYYDDD (A2025217), the Version of the data collection (002), the Julian Date and Time of Production designated as YYYYDDDHHMMSS (2025229150738), and the Data Format (h5).

Documents

Variables

Variables are a set of physical properties whose values determine the characteristics or behavior of something. For example, temperature and pressure are variables of the atmosphere. Parameters and variables can be used interchangeably. Variable level attributes provide individual information for each variable.

The Name in this table is the variable name. Fill value indicates missing or undefined data points in a variable. Valid range is the range of values the variable can store. Scale factor is used to increase or decrease the size of an object and can be used to correct for distortion. For questions on a specific variable, please use the Earthdata Forum.

Name Description Units Data Type Fill Value Valid Range Scale Factor
Lakes 8-day aggregated global lake area, elevation, and storage N/A OTHER -9999 N/A N/A
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