Development of a global and dynamic map of wetland and inundated areas based on microwave remote sensing product (GIEMS-2) over 1992-202

Wetlands and inundated areas cover only a few percent of the Earth's surface. However, they play an important role in freshwater regulation, biodiversity, and climate. In particular, a significant proportion of atmospheric methane is emitted from these areas [1]. There is therefore a need for data that can reliably capture surface water interannual variability over the past decades.  The Global Inundation Extent from Multi-Satellites (GIEMS-2) [2] is based on microwave remote sensing data (SSM/I and SSMIS). It provides a 0.25° global monthly estimate of inundated and saturated areas and has been extended to 2020 to cover three decades (1992-2020).  First, an evaluation of GIEMS-2 together with other products is presented. Key findings include consistent spatial patterns, seasonal cycles and time series anomalies observed by GIEMS-2 with the other observational datasets studied (MODIS-derived surface water, CYGNSS-derived surface water, river discharge). This highlights the interest of such a product for the calibration of hydrological models, as has been achieved for example by Xi et al. (2022) for TOPMODEL [3].  In a second part, the use of GIEMS-2 for the estimation of methane emissions from wetlands and inundated areas is discussed. GIEMS-2 has been processed with other data sources to derive a dynamic map of wetlands (including peatlands), open water (lakes, rivers, reservoirs) and rice paddies. This comprehensive product allows a consistent view of the area between the different classes, limiting problems of double counting and miss counting. This new database can then be used to constrain the extent of the water surface in models estimating methane flux rates, in order to study the influence of surface water changes on interannual variations in methane emissions.   [1] Marielle Saunois et al. “The Global Methane Budget 2000–2017”. In: Earth System Science Data 12.3 (July 2020), pp. 1561–1623. doi: 10.5194/essd-12-1561-2020. url: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-1561-2020.[2] C. Prigent, C. Jimenez, and P. Bousquet. “Satellite-Derived Global Surface Water Extent and Dynamics Over the Last 25 Years (GIEMS-2)”. In: Jour-nal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 125.3 (Feb. 2020). doi: 10.1029/2019jd030711. url: https://doi.org/10.1029/2019jd030711.[3] Yi Xi et al. “Gridded Maps of Wetlands Dynamics over Mid-Low Latitudes for 1980–2020 Based on TOPMODEL”. In: Scientific Data 9.1 (June 2022), p. 347. issn: 2052-4463. doi: 10.1038/s41597-022-01460-w