Captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission in June 2025, the image shows the Mackenzie River in Canada. It is Canada’s largest river basin, covering about 1.8 million square kilometres or about 20% of the landmass of Canada. It was one of the rivers used in an ESA-funded study, which used satellite data to reconstruct two decades of river discharge and runoff. The research revealed a striking mosaic of regional change as warming temperatures and shifting precipitation reshape the Arctic’s hydrological system in uneven ways.
Read full story: Tracking Arctic river freshwater flow from space