Drought driven shrinkage of surface water bodies in India

The Surface Water Bodies (SWB) dataset provides information on 10,476 water bodies across India from 1990 to 2017. It captures long-term changes (%), seasonal variability (anomaly %), and responses of SWB to climate extremes, particularly droughts. This fills the critical gap in understanding how surface water bodies in India respond to droughts and climate extremes across regions and seasons in India. The dataset includes drought-derived surface water area anomalies and classification of water bodies by size and climate zone. It allows assessment of statistically significant trends in the SWB area, seasonal shrinkage or expansion under dry and wet conditions, and the differential impacts of drought severity across regions. By combining spatial and temporal information, the SWB dataset offers a comprehensive resource to study surface water dynamics and supports sustainable water management and climate risk assessment in India.