USGS WISP - What is SWOT (Surface Water Mission Portal)
USGS Water Information for SWOT Products application providing access, visualization and explanation of SWOT satellite surface-water hydrology products (river and lake water surface elevation and extent) for US and global users.
apps.usgs.gov
At a glance
- Region
- United States (Global)
- Coverage
- Global
- Access
- Free
- Category
- Government
- Last updated
- 2026
What's inside
- SWOT
- river water surface elevation
- surface water
- lakes
What you can do with it
Typical work that data of this type supports.
- 01
Storage tracking
Follow storage and releases through the season.
Because it has: surface water
- 02
Change over time
See how lakes and wetlands have grown or shrunk.
- 03
Design flows
Estimate 1-in-50 and 1-in-100 year floods for bridges, culverts and spillways.
Where AI adds value
Ideas for machine learning and AI agents built on this kind of data.
- 01
Storage from space
Estimate volume from satellite water area and altimetry.
- 02
Release decisions
Optimise releases against inflow forecasts.
- 03
Flow forecasting
Train LSTM-style models on past records to forecast river levels and flow days ahead.
Related water data
- PO.DAAC Cookbook - SWOT Hydrology Data AccessGlobal | Free
- Hydrocron API - SWOT River & Lake Time Series (PO.DAAC)Global | Free
- McGill Global HydroLAB: GLWDGlobal | Free
- Theia / Data Terra Catalogue - Hydroweb Operational Altimetry River & Lake Water LevelGlobal | Free
- GLWD v2 Global Lakes & Wetlands DatabaseGlobal | Free
- NOAA NCEI Marine Microplastics DatabaseGlobal | Free
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