A remote sensing-based area dataset for approximately 40 years that reveals the hydrological asynchrony of Lake Chad based on Google Earth Engine

Abstract

As the second largest lake in Africa, the extent of Lake Chad has over 50% seasonal variations with large parts of water under aquatic vegetation. Although a great area shrinkage since the 1960s divided the lake into two parts, namely, the northern and southern basins, it still feeds millions of people from four countries around it. Given sparse in situ measurements, remote sensing with seamless spatial coverage has served for acquiring the long-term area series of Lake Chad. This study retrieves the open (unvegetated) surface water area series of Lake Chad and the total inundation area, including open water and water under macrophytes, combining multiple remote sensing data from around 1980 to 2020 with satellite-based water level and in situ observations at the Bol gauge as validation and auxiliary. Results show that the total inundation area continuously recovered at a rate of 145 km2/year from 1982 to 2020 with large annual fluctuations. Approximately two- to three-month time lags between the open surface water and the total inundation area reveal the hydrological asynchrony of Lake Chad, which can be attributed by the large area of rooted macrophytes. The overspill of the southern surface water flowing over the Great Barrier into the northern lake also has a one-month lag with the open surface water of the southern lake. The Google Earth Engine-based online application can be easily shared for use and data downloaded by the general public, and the open code can be adjusted for any other lakes worldwide.