White Volta Landsat and Shapefile
Description
This dataset contains geospatial shapefiles of the White Volta Basin (WVB) and processed Landsat 8 and 9 satellite imagery for the year 2025. The White Volta Basin is a transboundary river basin in West Africa, covering an extensive geographical area that requires multiple Landsat scenes to achieve complete spatial coverage. To address this challenge, the authors utilized Google Earth Engine (GEE) to acquire, preprocess, and combine satellite imagery covering the basin. The satellite imagery was obtained from the Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 Collection 2, Level-2 Surface Reflectance datasets for the period January 1 to December 31, 2025. A total of 449 satellite scenes were included in the processing workflow. Cloud and cloud-shadow masking was performed using the QA_PIXEL band, followed by the application of surface reflectance scaling factors. An annual median composite was subsequently generated to produce a spatially continuous representation of the basin while minimizing cloud contamination and other atmospheric interference. The resulting composite contains six multispectral bands, comprising blue, green, red, near-infrared, and two shortwave infrared bands, at a spatial resolution of 30 metres. Due to the large geographical extent of the basin, the processed imagery was exported in two GeoTIFF tiles to facilitate data handling and subsequent geospatial analysis. The dataset provides a consolidated source of satellite imagery and basin boundary information for remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) applications. It can support land use and land cover assessment, vegetation monitoring, surface water mapping, land surface disturbance analysis, environmental degradation assessment, and the identification of areas potentially affected by illegal mining activities. By providing pre-processed Landsat imagery alongside the relevant basin shapefiles, the dataset reduces the computational requirements and time associated with acquiring, preprocessing, and combining multiple satellite scenes. It is intended to facilitate geospatial research, environmental monitoring, and water resources management within the White Volta Basin.
Files
Steps to reproduce
1. Study Area Preparation: Obtain the White Volta Basin boundary shapefile and import it into Google Earth Engine (GEE) as a FeatureCollection. Use the basin boundary as the Area of Interest (AOI) for satellite image acquisition, processing, and extraction. 2. Satellite Data Acquisition: Access the Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 Collection 2, Level-2 Surface Reflectance datasets in GEE using the collections `LANDSAT/LC08/C02/T1_L2` and `LANDSAT/LC09/C02/T1_L2`, respectively. Filter both collections by the White Volta Basin boundary and the acquisition period from January 1 to December 31, 2025. 3. Cloud and Cloud-Shadow Masking: Apply quality masking using the QA_PIXEL band to remove pixels affected by clouds, cloud shadows, cirrus, and other unwanted conditions. This improves the quality of the satellite imagery used in subsequent processing. 4. Surface Reflectance Correction: Apply the Landsat Collection 2 Level-2 surface reflectance scaling factor of 0.0000275 and offset of -0.2 to the optical bands. Select the six spectral bands (SR_B2, SR_B3, SR_B4, SR_B5, SR_B6, and SR_B7) required for geospatial analysis. 5. Image Compositing: Merge the processed Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 image collections and generate an annual median composite. This combines the available satellite observations into a single image covering the study period while reducing residual cloud contamination and temporal variability. 6. Image Extraction and Export: Clip the resulting composite to the White Volta Basin boundary and export the processed imagery from GEE at a spatial resolution of 30 metres. Due to the extensive geographical coverage of the basin, export the composite in two GeoTIFF tiles to facilitate storage, downloading, and subsequent analysis.
Institutions
- Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and TechnologyAshanti, Kumasi