GRACE Observations for Global Groundwater Storage Analysis

Dear Colleagues,

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission was launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2002 and continued with the GRACE – Follow On (GRACE-FO) mission in 2018, which is ongoing. The GRACE mission uses a pair of satellites to measure changes in the Earth’s gravitational field that are caused by changes in water storage. These water storage anomalies can be combined with other datasets to derive estimates in groundwater storage changes. GRACE data offer a unique opportunity to perform groundwater storage analysis to assess regional groundwater sustainability and to study the impacts of climate change. GRACE data can have a high degree of uncertainty due to “leakage” and other issues arising from the coarse resolution of the raw GRACE data. However, GRACE data provide researchers with a unique tool for analyzing a variety of important research questions without having to rely on in situ data, which can be expensive and difficult to obtain, particularly in developing countries.

The aim of this Special Issue is to highlight unique and creative applications of GRACE data to address research questions related to global groundwater storage, including the impact of climate change and to provide a venue to characterize case studies and describe groundwater use, management, and planning for specific regions.

• Groundwater storage analysis in data-sparse regions;
• Climate change impacts on groundwater storage;
• Regional groundwater sustainability;
• Downscaling GRACE-derived groundwater storage data;
• GRACE-assimilated groundwater storage analysis methods;
• Validation techniques for GRACE-derived groundwater storage estimates;
• Uncertainty analysis of GRACE-derived groundwater storage;
• Assessing the impact of leakage on GRACE-derived groundwater storage estimates;
• New tools or algorithms for processing GRACE data;
• Characterizing regional historical groundwater storage using GRACE;
• Groundwater management using GRACE data case studies.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Remote Sensing.

Dr. Norman L. Jones
Dr. Gustavious Paul Williams
Guest Editors

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• groundwater sustainability
• GRACE
• groundwater storage trends
• groundwater management