Water index in the Qilian Mountain Area (1980-2015)

This dataset contains the ground surface water (including liquid water, glacier and perennial snow) area in Qilian Mountain Area from 1980 to 2015. The dataset was produced based on classical Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) extraction criterion and manual editing. Landsat images collected between 1978 and 2018 were used as basic data for water index extraction. Sentinel-2 images and Google images were employed as reference data for adjusting the extraction threshold. The dataset was stored in SHP format and attached with the attributions of coordinates and water area. Consisting of 8 seasons, the dataset has a temporal resolution of 5 years and a spatial resolution of 30 meters. The accuracy is about 1 pixel (±30 meter). The dataset directly reflects the variation of water distribution within the Qilian Mountain in the past 35 years, and can be used for quantitative estimation of water resource.