This image of the Panama Canal taken by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite illustrates its maritime significance. However, a severe drought in Panama threatens the canal's operations, reducing daily ship traffic and causing wider economic repercussions. Ships passing through the Panama Canal across Central America resemble shining gems in the water in this image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite.
This Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite image vividly captures ships transiting the 80-kilometer-long Panama Canal, a major engineering achievement that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The satellite's radar instrument provides an uninterrupted view of the Earth's surface, showing maritime traffic in the canal and activity in Lake Gatun. Image source: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2020-22), processed by ESA, CCBY-SA3.0IGO
The 50-mile (80-kilometer) Panama Canal connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and is one of the greatest engineering projects of the last century.
Locks at either end of the canal can raise or lower the water level up to 85 feet (26 meters): ships entering the canal are raised, then lowered to sea level as they exit the canal. Under normal circumstances, up to 14,000 ships pass through the canal each year, making it one of the world's busiest sea lanes.
The Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite carries radar instruments that provide images of the Earth's surface all day and night, making it ideal for monitoring ship traffic. Here, hundreds of radar images collected from 2020 to 2022 are compressed into a single image. Each year's image is represented in a different color to highlight the differences: the 2020 image is represented in blue, the 2021 image in green, and the 2022 image in red. At either end of the canal, ships entering, exiting or waiting to pass through the waterway are displayed as red, green and blue dots depending on the year.
Traces of maritime traffic are clearly visible in the waterway, as is traffic on Lake Gatun - a large, black, jagged body of inland water at the center of the image.
Lake Gatun was formed by damming the Chagres River to the north, where a black winding river can be seen flowing into the Caribbean Sea. The lake water helps keep the locks functioning properly. This year, however, Panama has experienced its driest season on record, significantly impacting the supply of fresh water needed by the floodgates.
Over the past few months, a severe drought has forced the Panama Canal Authority to gradually reduce the number of ships entering the canal from an average of 37 per day to a maximum of 31 per day, with consequences for maritime traffic and the local and global economy.