Monthly Maximum Flood Water Depth Spatial Timeseries for the Murray-Darling Basin

Full description

This dataset is an enhanced version of the Two-Monthly Maximum Flood Water Depth Spatial Time Series for the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) (https://doi.org/10.25919/c5ab-h019). It now provides monthly spatial layers, representing the maximum surface water extent and water depth within each monthly period across the MDB from 2016 to 2024. The dataset was developed using the Multi-Index Method (MIM) for surface water mapping (https://data.csiro.au/collection/csiro:63897, please refer to the metadata of this dataset for details) and a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) (https://data.csiro.au/collection/csiro:64136) processed with the Floodwater Depth Estimation Tool (FwDET). Key improvements in this version include:
•\tTransition from two-monthly to monthly frequency.
•\tIntegration of Sentinel-2 data from 2016 onwards.
•\tCoverage updated to June 2024.
•\tEnhanced water detection in wetlands and vegetated areas using advanced remote sensing imagery.
•\tImproved cloud masking algorithms for greater accuracy.
•\tMore precise water depth estimation through the incorporation of a bathymetry-enforced DEM.

These updates make the dataset more detailed and reliable, supporting advanced analysis and decision-making for floodplain and water resource management in the Murray-Darling Basin. This dataset offers 8.5 years of monthly images of surface water depth across the entire MDB.

The file format is Cloud Optimised Geotiff (COG). The data type for the files is uint16. The unit of the data is in millimetres. The maximum depth is 65534mm; minimum water depth is 1mm; value 0 represents dry land; and value 65535 represents no-data. The file format is Cloud Optimised Geotiff (COG) and the projection used is EPSG:4326.

Lineage: This dataset was generated using an improved version of the Floodwater Depth Estimation Tool (FwDET), first developed by Cohen et al. (2018). The flood water depth was estimated based on spatial time series of Maximum Monthly Surface Water Extent for MDB from MIM Using Landsat and Sentinel-2 ( https://data.csiro.au/collection/csiro:63897 ), and a bathymetry-enforced DEM (https://data.csiro.au/collection/csiro:64136).