Cretaux J. F. auteur aut IRD Calmant Stéphane auteur aut IRD Papa Fabrice auteur aut IRD Frappart F. auteur aut IRD Paris A. auteur aut IRD Berge-Nguyen M. auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf born digital access In recent decades, water availability, water use, water sharing and freshwater supply for basic human and economic needs have become central scientific and humanitarian issues. With increasing water scarcity in many regions and increasing frequency of extreme flooding in other regions, there is a need to improve predictive capacity, to collect a large amount of information on key hydrological variables such as flows or water stocks in lakes and floodplains and to best combine these data with hydrological and hydrodynamic models. Most of the world's water demand relies on continental surface waters (rivers, lakes, wetlands and artificial reservoirs) while less on underground aquifers and seawater desalination. However, ground-based hydrological survey networks have steadily and drastically decreased worldwide over the last decades. In this context, current remote sensing techniques have been widely used by several countries for water resource monitoring purposes. In this paper, we present such remote sensing techniques, in particular satellite altimetry and imagery, and discuss how they became essential for the study of the water cycle and hydrological phenomena on a broad range of spatial and temporal scales. Large lakes, rivers and wetlands play a major role in the global water cycle and are also markers, integrators and actors of climate change at work on Earth. We show several examples chosen from the literature that perfectly highlight both current scientific and societal issues, as well as the crucial role of space techniques to monitor terrestrial surface waters. specialized Radar altimetry Satellite imagery Rivers Rating curve Floodplain Lakes 126 064 062 44 5 1519-1552 2023 0169-3298 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010090186 10.1007/s10712-023-09803-x 0169-3298 [F B010090186] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010090186 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/intranet/publi/2023-10/010090186.pdf Accès réservé (Intranet de l'IRD) IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2023-10-06 2025-02-24 fdi:010090186 fre