Flooding in Western Russia

As the ground began to thaw and snow melted, the Dnieper River and its tributaries were swollen with spring run-off. According to news reports, the rivers had caused some damage as flood waters inundated small cities along their banks. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite captured this image of the river system on April 4, 2004. Four major rivers are shown running into the Dnieper, the large river that forms the trunk of this tree-like structure. On the far right is the Desna River, with the Seym River branching off of it. The center right branch is formed by the Sozh River and its tributaries. The center left branch is the Dnieper, and running into it from the top left is the Byarezina River. The far left branch is formed by the Prypyats River.

Complicating this tangle of flowing water, the borders of three countries snake along the rivers, sometimes following their flow, but often not. Russia is in the top right corner of the image, Ukraine forms the lower third, and Belarus is in the upper left corner. In the high-resolution image, Poland and Lithuania are visible along the left edge of the image, and Romania, Moldova, and the Black Sea sit on the lower edge.

Here, fires are marked with red dots. The fires were likely started by farmers clearing their fields for spring planting. This false-color image shows vegetation as green, bare ground as tan and pink, and clouds in light blue. Water is black and dark blue.

The high-resolution image provided above has a resolution of 500 meters per pixel. The image is available in additional resolutions, including MODIS’ maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel.

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