Spatiotemporal lakes surface area changes over 35 years and potential causes in the Central Rift Valley, Ethiopia

Study Region: Central Rift Valley (CRV) region, Ethiopia. Study Focus: The study aims to investigate the spatiotemporal change in lake water surface extents over 35 years (1986–2020) and identify potential causes. Three alternative multispectral water indices—Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Automatic Water Extraction Index (AWEI), and Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI)—derived from Landsat sensors (TM, ETM+, OLI) were utilized to extract and analyze the lake surface area. The Mann-Kendall correlation was applied to examine whether hydro-meteorological and anthropogenic variables are possible causes for changes. New Hydrological Insights for the Region: MNDWI outperforms other indices with over 96 % accuracy in mapping lake surface area. Lake Abiyata experienced the most significant reduction in surface area from 1986 to 2020 (>50 %), followed by Lake Ziway (