A dataset of summer surface water distribution in Qinghai Province based on multi-source data (2019–2023)

<p indent="0mm">Qinghai Province, situated in the northeastern region of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is famously known as the “Water Tower of China”. Constructing a surface water distribution dataset for this region is crucial for monitoring water resource, ecological security, and disaster risk, and for supporting response efforts in China. This study, based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, uses Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 to calculate three indices: the Dual-Polarization Water Body Index (SDWI), the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), and the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI). By integrating these indices with SRTM data and applying a threshold segmentation method, the summer surface water distribution in Qinghai Province was extracted, and a dataset with a 10-meter spatial resolution spanning from 2019 to 2023 was obtained. Additionally, the annual surface water area was statistically calculated. A confusion matrix was used to evaluate the accuracy of the dataset. The results show that the average overall accuracy of the dataset reached 90% and the average Kappa coefficient is 0.85. This dataset can provide data support for monitoring surface water changes, studying climate change impacts, and formulating related policies in Qinghai Province.