Virtual water level stations in the Amazon floodplains measured by radar echoes classification

This dataset was obtained using altimetry data, from CTOH (Center for Topographic studies of the Ocean and Hydrosphere, http://ctoh.legos.obs-mip.fr/), of the ENVISAT (2002-2010) and SARAL (2013-2016) satellite missions acquired over the Curuai floodplain along the Amazon and the Jurua watershed. The dataset contains classification results of radar altimetry echoes performed with the unsupervised K-means method (netCDF4 files) with each satellite missions (ENV for ENVISAT and SRL for SARAL) based on echo backscatter and normalized water height (sh) parameters. For each area, four classes were created to best represent the different hydrological regimes in the Amazon without over-interpreting radar echoes. The four classes are rated from 0 to 3. Class 0 is very often located on open water (lakes or rivers); on the contrary, class 3 is mainly located in non-flooded areas (not used here). Classes 1 and 2 correspond to intermediate hydrological environment such as permanently or seasonally flooded and seasonally or infrequently flooded, respectively. For each cluster of echoes classified in the same class along an altimetric track, a station is created containing the time series of local water level variation (.txt files). This is an important densification of water level information in the Amazon floodplains.