Land & Water Public beta

Land & Water (LAW) · in development

Watch forests, rivers and lakes change, from orbit.

LAW is a satellite monitoring tool we are building for land and water: forests and forestry, rivers, lakes and land cover, with forest-cover tracking for carbon-credit project areas. Forest-cover monitoring comes first.

How it will workSign in
  • In development, not live yet
  • Forest-cover monitoring first
  • Public satellite data
Concept illustration · not real data Forest cover Change flagged Project area
Concept illustration of the planned map: forest cover, a river and lake, and a project boundary with a flagged change. Not real data and not a screenshot.

What it will do

One map for land, water and forests.

What LAW is being built to show. Items are planned features, in rough build order; none is live yet.

Forest cover

Where tree cover is, and where it has been lost or regrown over time.

First to build

Carbon-credit project areas

Forest cover inside a project boundary over time, so changes are easy to see and check.

Planned

Forestry

Clearing, logging roads and replanting, seen as changes in forest cover.

Planned

Rivers and lakes

Water extent: rivers, lakes and reservoirs, wet and dry seasons, flooding.

Planned

Land cover

How land is used and how that changes: farmland, settlements, bare ground.

Planned

How it works

From a satellite image to a change on the map, in plain language.

The plan, step by step. LAW is planned to use free, public satellite data (see the footer for the sources).

  1. See the ground

    Optical satellites (such as Sentinel-2 and Landsat) photograph the land every few days; radar (Sentinel-1) sees through cloud, which matters over tropical forest.

  2. Sort what is what

    Each pixel is classified as forest, other vegetation, water or bare ground, building on published public datasets for forest and surface water.

  3. Compare over time

    Images of the same place from different dates are compared, so new clearings, regrowth or changing water levels stand out.

  4. Show it simply

    Changes appear on a map and as a timeline for any area you draw or a project boundary you upload.

Forest-cover tracking is meant to help people see and check what is happening on the ground. LAW will not certify, issue or verify carbon credits, and is not a registry.

Why it matters · who it's for

Land and water change slowly, then all at once.

Forest loss, drying lakes and shifting rivers are hard to see from the ground and easy to miss. A regular view from orbit makes change visible early, to anyone.

Landowners and foresters

Keep an eye on your own land and spot clearing or damage early.

Carbon project teams and buyers

See forest cover inside a project boundary over time.

Conservation groups and researchers

Track forests, wetlands and lakes across large areas from public data.

Communities and local government

Follow changes to rivers, lakes and land around you.

One SNAPS account

Sign in once, open the map.

Land & Water uses the same free SNAPS account as the other trackers. Create it or sign in on snapstracker.com; you come straight back here.

  • Free core maps
  • Same account as Sargassum and OPS
  • Sign-out on one site signs you out everywhere

Continue on snapstracker.com (accounts are central; nothing is typed on this page).

Create free account I already have one

After you sign in you will return to the Land & Water map.