This data package consists of multiple decades of modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI) raster data across the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) study area within metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona (USA), temporally aggregated by year and by four meteorological seasons (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall). By providing a metric by which to reliably identify bodies of open water, these MNDWI data are intended to facilitate analyses of land-based environmental variables (e.g., urbanization, vegetation, land surface temperature) and can also be used to track long-term and seasonal change in the coarse extent of open water as a land-cover type. MNDWI was derived, following the methods of Xu (2006), from annual and seasonal composites of 30-m resolution Landsat 5-9 Level-2 Surface Reflectance imagery. All imagery retrieval and data processing were completed with Google Earth Engine (Gorelick et al. 2017) and program R. A complete description of data processing methods, including the aggregation of imagery by year and season and the calculation of the spectral index, can be found in the data package metadata (see 'Methods and Protocols') and accompanying Javascript code.

Citations:

• Gorelick N, Hancher M, Dixon M, et al. (2017) Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone. Remote Sensing of Environment 202:18--27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2017.06.031
• Xu, H. (2006). Modification of normalised difference water index (NDWI) to enhance open water features in remotely sensed imagery. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 27(14), 3025--3033. https://doi.org/10.1080/01431160600589179