scholarly journals State-of-the-art potential of the GRACE satellite mission for solving modern hydrological problems

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia L. Frolova ◽  
◽  
Vadim Yu. Grigorev ◽  
Inna N. Krylenko ◽  
Elena A. Zakharova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
Winter Period ◽  
Total Water ◽  
Satellite Mission ◽  
The North ◽  
Grace Data ◽  
North Part ◽  
Grace Mission

The paper presents main results of GRACE mission using in such fields of study as estimations of components of basins water storage and water balance, hydrological modeling. It is shown that error of GRACE data is of the order 11 mm for watersheds with area about 100 000 km2 and decreasing with increasing of basin area. This accuracy made it possible to identify long-term and seasonal water storage. It is shown, that decreasing of total water storage in the Don basin for 2002–2019 is approximately equally caused by both soil moisture and groundwater changes. At the same time, minimum of groundwater was already reached in 2010, and soil moisture in 2015. Since 2016, Don basin groundwater changes a little during the winter period that is due, probably, with increase number of thaws and thinning of the freezing layer during this period. By the data of meteorological stations for the precipitation of cold period for the European Russia the value of their systematic error was estimated, it is about 20-25%. The comparison of the values of total water storage for the river basins of the north part of European part of Russia, according GRACE data and ECOMAG runoff modeling results has shown their good coincidence (NSE =0.78 0.89). In comparison with GRACE, ECOMAG shows a smaller increase in water storage during the winter and a faster decline during spring flood period. Currently, progress in the use of GRACE in hydrology is limited by low spatial-temporal resolution of data, which, within the framework of the GRACE mission itself, will not be improved in the coming years. At the same time, the principle of GRACE operation can be applied in future to various satellite constellations.

scholarly journals Monitoring Droughts From GRACE

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bramha Dutt Vishwakarma
Keyword(s):  
Satellite Remote Sensing ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Satellite Mission ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Grace Data ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Grace Mission ◽  
Storage Change

With ongoing climate change, we are staring at possibly longer and more severe droughts in the future. Therefore, monitoring and understanding duration and intensity of droughts, and how are they evolving in space and time is imperative for global socio-economic security. Satellite remote sensing has helped us a lot in this endeavor, but most of the satellite missions observe only near-surface properties of the Earth. A recent geodetic satellite mission, GRACE, measured the water storage change both on and beneath the surface, which makes it unique and valuable for drought research. This novel dataset comes with unique problems and characteristics that we should acknowledge before using it. In this perspective article, I elucidate important characteristics of various available GRACE products that are important for drought research. I also discuss limitations of GRACE mission that one should be aware of, and finally I shed some light on latest developments in GRACE data processing that may open numerous possibilities in near future.

scholarly journals Downscaling GRACE total water storage change using partial least squares regression

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bramha Dutt Vishwakarma ◽  
Jinwei Zhang ◽  
Nico Sneeuw
Keyword(s):  
Water Mass ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
Temporal Variations ◽  
Least Squares Regression ◽  
Total Water ◽  
Satellite Mission ◽  
Grace Data ◽  
Gravity Recovery ◽  
Storage Change

AbstractThe Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission recorded temporal variations in the Earth’s gravity field, which are then converted to Total Water Storage Change (TWSC) fields representing an anomaly in the water mass stored in all three physical states, on and below the surface of the Earth. GRACE provided a first global observational record of water mass redistribution at spatial scales greater than 63000 km2. This limits their usability in regional hydrological applications. In this study, we implement a statistical downscaling approach that assimilates 0.5° × 0.5° water storage fields from the WaterGAP hydrology model (WGHM), precipitation fields from 3 models, evapotranspiration and runoff from 2 models, with GRACE data to obtain TWSC at a 0.5° × 0.5° grid. The downscaled product exploits dominant common statistical modes between all the hydrological datasets to improve the spatial resolution of GRACE. We also provide open access to scripts that researchers can use to produce downscaled TWSC fields with input observations and models of their own choice.

scholarly journals Hydrological Excitation of Polar Motion Derived from GRACE Gravity Field Solutions

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Seoane ◽  
J. Nastula ◽  
C. Bizouard ◽  
D. Gambis
Keyword(s):  
Polar Motion ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
High Latitudes ◽  
The North ◽  
Grace Data ◽  
Influence Of Water ◽  
Grace Mission ◽  
Polar Motion Excitation ◽  
Good Agreement ◽  
Global Hydrology

The influence of the continental water storage on the polar motion is not well known. Different models have been developed to evaluate these effects and compared to geodetic observations. However, previous studies have shown large discrepancies mainly attributed to the lack of global measurements of related hydrological parameters. Now, from the observations of the GRACE mission, we can estimate the polar motion excitation due to the global hydrology. Data processing of GRACE data is carried out by several centers of analysis, we focus on the new solution computed by the Groupe de Recherche de Géodésie Spatiale. At annual scales, excitations derived from GRACE data are in better agreement with geodetic observations than models estimates. The main contribution to the hydrological excitation comes from the monsoon climates regions where GRACE and models estimates are in a very good agreement. Still, the effect of the north high latitudes regions, where the principal areas of snow cover are found, cannot be neglected. At these regions, GRACE and models estimated contributions to polar motion excitations show significant discrepancies. Finally, GRACE-based excitations reveal the possible influence of water storage variations in exciting polar motion around the frequency of 3 cycles per year.

scholarly journals Water Storage Variations in Tibet from GRACE, ICESat, and Hydrological Data

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang Zou ◽  
Robert Tenzer ◽  
Shuanggen Jin
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Water Budget ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Total Water ◽  
Satellite Mission ◽  
Mountain Glaciers ◽  
Grace Data ◽  
The Impact

The monitoring of water storage variations is essential not only for the management of water resources, but also for a better understanding of the impact of climate change on hydrological cycle, particularly in Tibet. In this study, we estimated and analyzed changes of the total water budget on the Tibetan Plateau from the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission over 15 years prior to 2017. To suppress overall leakage effect of GRACE monthly solutions in Tibet, we applied a forward modeling technique to reconstruct hydrological signals from GRACE data. The results reveal a considerable decrease in the total water budget at an average annual rate of −6.22 ± 1.74 Gt during the period from August 2002 to December 2016. In addition to the secular trend, seasonal variations controlled mainly by annual changes in precipitation were detected, with maxima in September and minima in December. A rising temperature on the plateau is likely a principal factor causing a continuous decline of the total water budget attributed to increase melting of mountain glaciers, permafrost, and snow cover. We also demonstrate that a substantial decrease in the total water budget due to melting of mountain glaciers was partially moderated by the increasing water storage of lakes. This is evident from results of ICESat data for selected major lakes and glaciers. The ICESat results confirm a substantial retreat of mountain glaciers and an increasing trend of major lakes. An increasing volume of lakes is mainly due to an inflow of the meltwater from glaciers and precipitation. Our estimates of the total water budget on the Tibetan Plateau are affected by a hydrological signal from neighboring regions. Probably the most significant are aliasing signals due to ground water depletion in Northwest India and decreasing precipitation in the Eastern Himalayas. Nevertheless, an integral downtrend in the total water budget on the Tibetan Plateau caused by melting of glaciers prevails over the investigated period.

scholarly journals A Spatial Downscaling Methodology for GRACE Total Water Storage Anomalies Using GPM IMERG Precipitation Estimates

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 5149
Author(s):  
Alexandra Gemitzi ◽  
Nikos Koutsias ◽  
Venkataraman Lakshmi
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Total Water ◽  
Coarse Resolution ◽  
Grace Data ◽  
Precipitation Estimates ◽  
Residual Correction ◽  
Global Precipitation

A downscaling framework for coarse resolution Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Total Water Storage Anomaly (TWSA) data is described, exploiting the observations of precipitation from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, using the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG). Considering that the major driving force for changes in TWS is precipitation, we tested our hypothesis that coarse resolution, i.e., 1°, GRACE TWSA can be effectively downscaled to 0.1° using GPM IMERG data. The algorithm for the downscaling process comprises the development of a regression equation at the coarse resolution between the GRACE and GPM IMERG data, which is then applied at the finer resolution with a subsequent residual correction procedure. An ensemble of GRACE data from three processing centers, i.e., GFZ, JPL and CSR, was used for the time period from June 2018 until March 2021. To verify our downscaling methodology, we applied it with GRACE data from 2005 to 2015, and we compared it against modeled TWSA from two independent datasets in the Thrace and Thessaly regions in Greece for the same period and found a high performance in all examined metrics. Our research indicates that the downscaled GRACE observations are comparable to the TWSA estimated with hydrological modeling, thus highlighting the potential of GRACE data to contribute to the improvement of hydrological model performance, especially in ungauged basins.

scholarly journals Study of water storage variations at the Pantanal wetlands area from GRACE monthly mass grids

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-143
Author(s):  
Ayelen Pereira ◽  
Cecilia Cornero ◽  
Ana C. O. C. Matos ◽  
M. Cristina Pacino ◽  
Denizar Blitzkow
Keyword(s):  
Water Mass ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
Transport Processes ◽  
Satellite Gravity ◽  
The North ◽  
Paraguay River ◽  
Gravity Recovery ◽  
Grace Mission ◽  
Phase Differences

Abstract The continental water storage is significantly in-fluenced by wetlands, which are highly affected by climate change and anthropogenic influences. The Pantanal, located in the Paraguay river basin, is one of the world’s largest and most important wetlands because of the environmental biodiversity that represents. The satellite gravity mission GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) provided until 2017 time-variable Earth’s gravity field models that reflected the variations due to mass transport processes-like continental water storage changes-which allowed to study environments such as wetlands, at large spatial scales. The water storage variations for the period 2002-2016, by using monthly land water mass grids of Total Water Storage (TWS) derived from GRACE solutions, were evaluated in the Pantanal area. The capability of the GRACE mission for monitoring this particular environment is analyzed, and the comparison of the water mass changes with rainfall and hydrometric heights data at different stations distributed over the Pantanal region was carried out. Additionally, the correlation between the TWS and river gauge measurements, and the phase differences for these variables, were also evaluated. Results show two distinct zones: high correlations and low phase shifts at the north, and smaller correlation values and consequently significant phase differences towards the south. This situation is mainly related to the hydrogeological domains of the area.

Long‐Term (1979‐Present) Total Water Storage Anomalies Over the Global Land Derived by Reconstructing GRACE Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fupeng Li ◽  
Jürgen Kusche ◽  
Nengfang Chao ◽  
Zhengtao Wang ◽  
Anno Löcher
Keyword(s):  
Water Storage ◽  
Total Water ◽  
Grace Data ◽  
Global Land

scholarly journals Calibration and evaluation of a semi-distributed watershed model of Sub-Saharan Africa using GRACE data

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 3083-3099 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Xie ◽  
L. Longuevergne ◽  
C. Ringler ◽  
B. R. Scanlon
Keyword(s):  
Regional Scale ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Total Water ◽  
Discharge Data ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Grace Data ◽  
Sub Saharan

Abstract. Irrigation development is rapidly expanding in mostly rainfed Sub-Saharan Africa. This expansion underscores the need for a more comprehensive understanding of water resources beyond surface water. Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites provide valuable information on spatio-temporal variability in water storage. The objective of this study was to calibrate and evaluate a semi-distributed regional-scale hydrologic model based on the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) code for basins in Sub-Saharan Africa using seven-year (July 2002–April 2009) 10-day GRACE data and multi-site river discharge data. The analysis was conducted in a multi-criteria framework. In spite of the uncertainty arising from the tradeoff in optimising model parameters with respect to two non-commensurable criteria defined for two fluxes, SWAT was found to perform well in simulating total water storage variability in most areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, which have semi-arid and sub-humid climates, and that among various water storages represented in SWAT, water storage variations in soil, vadose zone and groundwater are dominant. The study also showed that the simulated total water storage variations tend to have less agreement with GRACE data in arid and equatorial humid regions, and model-based partitioning of total water storage variations into different water storage compartments may be highly uncertain. Thus, future work will be needed for model enhancement in these areas with inferior model fit and for uncertainty reduction in component-wise estimation of water storage variations.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Water Storage Change of Inland Cryosphere in Northwestern China

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Xu ◽  
Shichang Kang ◽  
Jiazhen Li
Keyword(s):  
Water Storage ◽  
Northwestern China ◽  
Satellite Mission ◽  
Pronounced Increase ◽  
The North ◽  
Gravity Fields ◽  
Grace Satellite ◽  
Gravity Recovery ◽  
Storage Change ◽  
Assimilation Model

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission provides measurements of Earth’s static and time-variable gravity fields with monthly resolution. In this study, changes of water storage in northwestern China were determined by GRACE monthly gravity field data obtained from 2003 to 2010. Comparisons of water storage change (WSC) simulated by a four-dimensional assimilation model (Noah) and observed by GRACE revealed similar patterns of change and a correlation coefficient of 0.71(P<0.05). Trend analysis indicated significant changes in the spatiotemporal variation of WSC in northwestern China during the 8-year study period, which were stronger in the east than in the west and more pronounced in the south than in the north. The most pronounced increase in water storage occurred in Gansu and Qinghai provinces, but, overall, water storage increased by 0.61 mm/a over northwestern China during the study period. Clear seasonal variations of WSC and precipitation were found, because glacial meltwater and precipitation are the main sources of water in the hydrosphere; meanwhile, the distributions of glaciers and permafrost also affect the spatial distribution of WSC.

scholarly journals Soil Moisture Variability in India: Relationship of Land Surface–Atmosphere Fields Using Maximum Covariance Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kishore Pangaluru ◽  
Isabella Velicogna ◽  
Geruo A ◽  
Yara Mohajerani ◽  
Enrico Ciracì ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
Surface Air Temperature ◽  
Covariance Analysis ◽  
Positive Trend ◽  
Total Water ◽  
Maximum Covariance Analysis ◽  
Surface Atmosphere

This study investigates the spatial and temporal variability of the soil moisture in India using Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) gridded datasets from June 2002 to April 2017. Significant relationships between soil moisture and different land surface–atmosphere fields (Precipitation, surface air temperature, total cloud cover, and total water storage) were studied, using maximum covariance analysis (MCA) to extract dominant interactions that maximize the covariance between two fields. The first leading mode of MCA explained 56%, 87%, 81%, and 79% of the squared covariance function (SCF) between soil moisture with precipitation (PR), surface air temperature (TEM), total cloud count (TCC), and total water storage (TWS), respectively, with correlation coefficients of 0.65, −0.72, 0.71, and 0.62. Furthermore, the covariance analysis of total water storage showed contrasting patterns with soil moisture, especially over northwest, northeast, and west coast regions. In addition, the spatial distribution of seasonal and annual trends of soil moisture in India was estimated using a robust regression technique for the very first time. For most regions in India, significant positive trends were noticed in all seasons. Meanwhile, a small negative trend was observed over southern India. The monthly mean value of AMSR soil moisture trend revealed a significant positive trend, at about 0.0158 cm3/cm3 per decade during the period ranging from 2002 to 2017.

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