Estimating water levels in reservoirs using Sentinel-2 derived time series of surface water areas: a case study of 20 reservoirs in Burkina Faso

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cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Water Management Instituteen
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering (2iE), Burkina Fasoen
cg.contributor.affiliationGeneral Directorate for Water Resources (DGRE), Burkina Fasoen
cg.contributor.affiliationWest African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), Burkina Fasoen
cg.contributor.donorLeona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trusten
cg.coverage.countryBurkina Faso
cg.coverage.iso3166-alpha2BF
cg.creator.identifierDr Akpoti Komlavi: 0000-0001-6435-5116en
cg.creator.identifierMoctar Dembélé: 0000-0002-0689-2033en
cg.creator.identifierSander J. Zwart: 0000-0002-5091-1801en
cg.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2025.104523en
cg.identifier.iwmilibraryH053816en
cg.identifier.projectIWMI - D-0523en
cg.isijournalISI Journalen
cg.issn1569-8432en
cg.journalInternational Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformationen
cg.reviewStatusPeer Reviewen
cg.volume139en
dc.contributor.authorCodjia, Audrey Kantz Dossouen
dc.contributor.authorAkpoti, Komlavien
dc.contributor.authorDembélé, Moctaren
dc.contributor.authorYonaba, R.en
dc.contributor.authorFowe, T.en
dc.contributor.authorSankande, S.en
dc.contributor.authorKoissi, Modeste G. Déo-Gratiasen
dc.contributor.authorZwart, Sander J.en
dc.date.accessioned2025-05-02T08:27:35Zen
dc.date.available2025-05-02T08:27:35Zen
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/174414
dc.titleEstimating water levels in reservoirs using Sentinel-2 derived time series of surface water areas: a case study of 20 reservoirs in Burkina Fasoen
dcterms.abstractReservoirs play a significant role in the mobilization of water resources in Burkina Faso, contributing to the management and availability of water for various purposes. Operational management of reservoirs requires accurate and timely water level information, which remote sensing can provide cost-effectively and with limited resources. In this study, the surface area of 20 reservoirs is first determined using a Random Forest classifier and Sentinel-2 images acquired between 2015 and 2022. The accuracy of the classified surface water areas is evaluated by calculating 5 accuracy assessment metrics. The classifications were validated using manually digitized water areas from high-resolution Google Earth images and compared to the Dynamic World (DW) land cover dataset. Afterward, the spatial variation in the areal extent of the reservoirs is analyzed over time. A linear relationship is established between the estimated surface area and the corresponding observed water level of the reservoirs. The results indicate that reservoir surface areas were accurately classified with Sentinel-2 images (Kappa above 90.35%) for all dates. Moreover, validation with high-resolution images provided an R2 of 0.99 and a Normalized Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE) of 3.53%. Smaller reservoirs exhibit significant variations in surface areas over time as compared to larger ones, which are more stable. The relationship between surface area and water level is satisfactory (R2 ranging from 0.76 to 0.97) for 14 of the 20 analyzed reservoirs. The remaining six reservoirs are affected by aquatic plant intrusion which leads to an underestimation of the surface area. The high accuracy and operational feasibility of the proposed approach demonstrate that Sentinel-2 imagery and machine learning techniques can be recommended for reservoir mapping within the framework of water level monitoring in Burkina Faso.en
dcterms.accessRightsOpen Access
dcterms.available2025-04-11en
dcterms.bibliographicCitationCodjia, Audrey Kantz Dossou; Akpoti, Komlavi; Dembélé, Moctar; Yonaba, R.; Fowe, T.; Sankande, S.; Koissi, Modeste G. Déo-Gratias; Zwart, Sander J. 2025. Estimating water levels in reservoirs using Sentinel-2 derived time series of surface water areas: a case study of 20 reservoirs in Burkina Faso. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 139:104523. (Special issue: African EO Challenges and Solutions in Water Scarcity and Food Security – Mapping the Environment) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2025.104523]en
dcterms.extent104523en
dcterms.issued2025-05en
dcterms.languageen
dcterms.licenseCC-BY-4.0
dcterms.publisherSpringeren
dcterms.subjectwater levelsen
dcterms.subjectwater reservoirsen
dcterms.subjectsurface wateren
dcterms.subjectsurface areaen
dcterms.subjectsatellite imageryen
dcterms.subjecttime series analysisen
dcterms.subjectcase studiesen
dcterms.typeJournal Article

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