 This paper compares the performance of 11 normalized difference water index, NDWI, models based on advanced land imager, ALA, thematic mapper, TM, and enhanced thematic mapper plus, ETM plus, data in mapping land surface water, LSW, at three different study sites in the Yangtze river basin, China. The contrast method, Otsu method, and confusion matrix were used to evaluate the accuracies of the LSW maps. 5 NDWI models of the ALI sensor have more than an overall accuracy of 91% with a CAPA coefficient of 0.78. The NDWI model calculated from the green, band 4, 0.525 to 0.605 micrometers, and SWR, band 9, 1.550 to 1.750 micrometers, bands of the ALI sensor, namely NDWA49, was shown to have the highest LSW mapping accuracy, more than the other NDWI models. Therefore, the NDWIA49 is the best indicator for LSW mapping of the ALI sensor and can be used for mapping LSW with high accuracy. This article was authored by Binyu Sun, Yuen Miao Guo, Hailei Wang, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.