SWOT Explorer: A browser extension for searching, previewing, clipping and quality-controlling SWOT satellite hydrology data

OSMAN OSAMA AHMED IBRAHIM 

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite measures the elevation and extent of rivers, lakes and reservoirs worldwide. Its river and lake products are distributed as one continent-wide file per satellite pass, so studying a single water body means downloading, unzipping and clipping many files with scripts or GIS software. SWOT Explorer is an open-source extension for Chrome and Edge that does this work in the browser, with no server. It finds the passes that really observe a user-drawn study area, previews the measured features on a map, clips and merges files, and builds quality-controlled time series of water level, area and storage change. It grades the reliability of each series and compares SWOT with gauge records and independent altimetry. An example on Blue Nile reservoirs shows the tool separating a consistent series from one that should not be trusted.