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Earth's surface water change over the past 30 years

Nature Climate Change volume 6, pages 810–813 (2016)Cite this article

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Earth's surface gained 115,000 km2 of water and 173,000 km2 of land over the past 30 years, including 20,135 km2 of water and 33,700 km2 of land in coastal areas. Here, we analyse the gains and losses through the Deltares Aqua Monitor — an open tool that detects land and water changes around the globe.

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Figure 1: Heat map of global surface water and land changes.
Figure 2: Largest surface water and land changes from 1985 until 2015 grouped by drainage basins.
Figure 3: Examples of surface water changes between 1985 and 2015, detected using the Aqua Monitor.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Deltares, Boussinesqweg 1, Delft, 2629 HV, The Netherlands

    Gennadii Donchyts, Fedor Baart, Hessel Winsemius & Jaap Kwadijk

  2. Delft University of Technology, Stevinweg 1, Delft, 2628 CN, The Netherlands

    Gennadii Donchyts, Fedor Baart & Nick van de Giesen

  3. Google, Brandschenkestrasse 110, Zürich, 8002, Switzerland

    Noel Gorelick

  4. University of Twente, Enschede, 7500 AE, The Netherlands

    Jaap Kwadijk

Authors
  1. Gennadii Donchyts
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  2. Fedor Baart
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  3. Hessel Winsemius
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  4. Noel Gorelick
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  5. Jaap Kwadijk
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  6. Nick van de Giesen
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Correspondence to Gennadii Donchyts.

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Donchyts, G., Baart, F., Winsemius, H. et al. Earth's surface water change over the past 30 years. Nature Clim Change 6, 810–813 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3111

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