Introduction
Access to clean drinking water is a crucial global challenge. Water is one of the critical United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG6: Clean water and sanitation). However, water management is still challenging, given the past decades’ accelerated climate change and land-use intensification. According to the UN, millions of people -mostly children- die annually from water-borne diseases. Experts report that water scarcity and poor water quality negatively impact food security, livelihoods, and educational opportunities for marginalized people globally. Therefore, there is an urgent need to focus on water resource management to help address other SDGs such as food security, poverty alleviation, and public health.
Inland water bodies are under increasing pressure from agricultural and residential runoff and sewage discharge. Water management authorities must assess and report on the state of lakes, reservoirs, and rivers. This ambitious task requires frequent spatial mapping, which is limited by in-situ water sampling. Earth observation data provide temporal and spatial information on parameters that provide insight into water bodies’ ecological status, dynamics, and trends. Some of the critical parameters for water quality assessments include suspended solids, turbidity, chlorophyll-a, and harmful algae bloom.