Poyang Lake, one of the most regularly flooded areas in China, can be considered as a key natural flood control and reduction element within the Changjiang middle basin. Within the Flood DRAGON Project, part of the MOST-ESA DRAGON Programme, Poyang Lake's water extent was monitored based on 64 ENVISAT low and medium resolution ASAR and MERIS Full Resolution data, over a two and half year period. It's the first time that such an amount of ENVISAT data was exploited in monitoring inland lake water extent variations. This original integration approach permitted: lake-surface variation analysis, yearly submersion-time estimation, and the recognition of three hydrological sub-systems. The results highlight the great potential of ENVISAT and more largely of Earth Observation Medium Resolution data in monitoring and managing large inland water bodies. This approach can be applied worldwide in a global climate change context.

The Flood Dragon project enhances the Envisat contribution for natural disaster monitoring such as flooding. During the 2005 and 2006 Chinese flood seasons, over the 23 attempted NRT exploitations of Envisat, 19 were successful, allowing exploitation of emergency programming procedures as well as Rolling Archive capabilities (based on ordinary long term acquisition scheduling). Obtained results are illustrated and lessons are discussed in terms of programming, downloading, processing, and images type and format.

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