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Description

The Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Water Reservoir Monthly Level 3 (L3) Global (MYD28C3) Version 6.1 product provides current data for 151 man-made reservoirs and 13 regulated natural lakes for a total of 164 reservoirs.
The MYD28C3 Version 6.1 data product is a composite of the 8-day area classifications from MYD28C2, which is converted to provide monthly elevation and water storage. Lake Temperature and Evaporation Model (LTEM) via MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST) (MYD21) and meteorological data from Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) are used to produce monthly evaporation rates and volume losses.
The MYD28C3 data product contains a single layer with information about the reservoir identifier, dam location (longitude and latitude), monthly reservoir area, elevation, storage capacity, evaporation rate, and evaporation volume.

Known Issues

  • Water occurrence images generally show smaller surface area dynamics in high latitude regions, creating pixels with low occurrence values that have relatively large uncertainties. In addition, the quality of raw water area classification can be affected by lake ice coverage typically creating an overestimation of surface area in the enhancement algorithm. This issue will be addressed in a future release of the enhancement algorithm. For additional information about known issues, refer to Section 4 in the User Guide and MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.

Version Description

New data product for Version 6.1

Product Summary

Platforms
Aqua
Instruments
MODIS
Spatial Extent
N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180
Geographic Region
GLOBAL
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
CARTESIAN
Temporal Extent
2002-07-01 to Present
Temporal Resolution
1 Month
Data Partner
Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC)
MODIS Adaptive Processing System, Terrestrial Information Systems Laboratory, Earth Sciences Division, Science and Exploration Directorate, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA (NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/TISL/MODAPS)
Concept ID
C2565805823-LPCLOUD
Data State
ACTIVE
Processing Level
3
Published
Updated
Science Keywords
Lakes/Reservoirs,
Total Surface Water,
Bed Elevation

Citation

Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.

Copy Citation

Gao, H. (2021). MODIS/Aqua Water Reservoir Monthly L3 Global V061 [Data set]. NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MYD28C3.061 Date Accessed: 2025-11-08

File Naming Convention

MYD28C3.A2025091.061.2025212151208.hdf

The file name begins with the Product Short Name (MYD28C3) followed by the Julian Date of Acquisition formatted as AYYYYDDD (A2025091), the Tile Identifier which is horizontal tile and vertical tile provided as hXXvYY (), the Version of the data collection (061), the Julian Date and Time of Production designated as YYYYDDDHHMMSS (2025212151208), and the Data Format (hdf).

Documents

Variables

Variables are a set of physical properties whose values determine the characteristics or behavior of something. For example, temperature and pressure are variables of the atmosphere. Parameters and variables can be used interchangeably. Variable level attributes provide individual information for each variable.

The Name in this table is the variable name. Fill value indicates missing or undefined data points in a variable. Valid range is the range of values the variable can store. Scale factor is used to increase or decrease the size of an object and can be used to correct for distortion. For questions on a specific variable, please use the Earthdata Forum.

Name Description Units Data Type Fill Value Valid Range Scale Factor
Lake Evaporation Monthly aggregated global lake area, elevation, storage, evaporation rate, and evaporation volume. N/A OTHER -9999 -9999 N/A
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