Lake Bangweulu and Wetlands, Zambia

The Lake Bangweulu area in Zambia includes a shallow lake, several rivers, flooded wetlands, grasslands, and swamps. 

This false-color corrected reflectance image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the Terra platform shows the area on April 27, 2026. The image is overlaid with the MODIS 3-day window flood information layer where yellow indicates areas of recurring floods, red indicates unusual or episodic flooding, and blue marks known, consistent water bodies. In this case, yellow highlights wetland areas around the lake that see regular inundation. 

The Bangweulu wetlands have been designated as wetlands of international importance by the RAMSAR Convention. It is home to 400 bird species and 80 species of fish, many of which are threatened or endangered. The area is also home to elephants, lechwe (antelope), hippopotamuses, and other wildlife.

While the previous image showed the area at 250-meter (per pixel) resolution, this image from the Sentinel-1 platform shows the region at 30 meters per pixel. The lake and rivers are again shown in blue, and the areas identified as "recurring flood" in the previous image are identified here as inundated vegetation (in green). The base image comes from the Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA) Radiometric Terrain Corrected SAR Backscatter from Sentinel-1, which is a terrain-corrected radar image. It is overlaid with the OPERA Dynamic Surface Water Extent imagery layer.

A side-by-side comparison highlights the increased level of detail and information that can be gleaned from the OPERA Sentinel-1 images. That increased level of detail does come at a cost to timeliness. While the Terra platform can image the entire planet in 1-2 days and revisits most areas daily, Sentinel-1 will only be able to map the same area every 6 to 12 days. This tradeoff between spatial coverage and temporal coverage is important to consider when using satellite imagery to study Earth.

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