Groundwater makes up roughly 30% of global freshwater. It also provides drinking water for the world’s population and irrigation for close to one third of global agricultural land. Because of this level of reliance, monitoring groundwater is crucial for water resources and land management. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE-Follow On (GRACE-FO) missions from NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) provide large-scale terrestrial water storage estimation from mid-2000 to present. The mission uses twin satellites to accurately map variations in the Earth's gravity field and surface mass distribution.

GRACE observations have been used for detecting groundwater depletion and for drought and flood predictions. This lightning-style training is designed to answer the demand and interest from the applications community in technologies that can be used to support water resources management. The webinar will provide an overview of the GRACE missions, groundwater data availability, and their applications in the monitoring and management of water resources. This lightning webinar also serves as the foundation for the advanced webinar, Using Earth Observations to Monitor Water Budgets for River Basin Management II.

Objective

• By the end of this training, attendees will be able to:
• Access GRACE data and analyze regional groundwater changes

The live session took place on 25 June 2020, but a recording is available.