Mapping the evolution of small reservoirs in Brazil from 1984 to 2025 using deep learning

ArXi:2606.00675v1 Announce Type: new Water research in Brazil largely overlooks the widespread damming of small streams for agricultural uses such as watering cattle, farm-scale hydropower, irrigation, and aquaculture. These ubiquitous dams and their reservoirs can alter water temperature, stream connectivity, aquatic habitats, greenhouse gas emissions, and evaporative water losses. Mapping small reservoirs is challenging because it requires reliably detecting small water bodies and distinguishing artificial reservoirs from natural lakes.