Water Extend Monitoring in Dams Using Sentinel-2 Remote Sensing: The Case of Burkina Faso

Surface water resources are stored in reservoirs in Burkina Faso. They are actually more efficient cost-benefit than groundwater, given unsuccessful drilling and arsenic contamination of boreholes. There is a need to reconsider the surface water as main water sources. However, their extents are impacted by climate change and living creatures uses. This study monitored the water extend variation in dams and lakes between 2017 and 2023, using sentinel-2 satellite. The Modified Normalized Difference Water Index was simulated using the Python based algorithm of Digital Earth Africa. It processes over 400 images with good pixels on each of 32 chosen reservoirs, then calculates the “gain” or “loss” of water surface. Results show that water surfaces are increasing in the country. Amongst the critical cases, Kompienga hydroelectric dam reveals an increase of 80.18% (82.33 / 102.67 km
²
) of newly area occupied by water. Such situations can lead to a dam breakdown.