September 29, 2023
April 16, 2023
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The Inner Niger Delta sits at the edge of the Sahara Desert in central Mali and is a critical resource for more than 2 million people who live in the region. The Delta provides some water year-round for agriculture, livestock herding, and fishing, but shrinks dramatically in the dry season, increasing competition for access to life-giving water.
During the rainy season in the Upper Niger Basin, the river carries the bounty southward, where it ultimately spills across the Inner Niger Delta to create wetlands, deep channels, and lush islands. At the same time—usually between August and December—a burst of green stretches over the arid tan landscape, a dramatic change that is easily seen from space.
On September 29, 2023, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of an emerald-green Inner Niger Delta. To see the change between dry season and wet, an image acquired by Terra MODIS on April 16, 2023, can be viewed by clicking on that date below the image.
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