Measuring water accumulation rates using GRACE data in areas experiencing glacial isostatic adjustment: The Nelson River basin

Abstract

International audienceGravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite-derived total water storage can be obscured by glacial isostatic adjustment. In order to solve this problem for the Nelson River drainage basin in Canada, a gravity rate map from 110 months (June 2002 to October 2011) of GRACE gravity data was corrected for glacial isostatic adjustment using an independent gravity rate map derived from updated GPS vertical velocities. The GPS-based map was converted to equivalent gravity rate using a transfer function developed from GPS and absolute-g data at colocated sites. The corrected GRACE gravity rate map revealed a major positive anomaly within the drainage basin, which was independently shown by hydrological data to be due to changes in water storage. The anomaly represents a cumulative increase at its center of about 340 mm of water, reflecting a progression from extreme drought to extremely wet conditions

On the use of the GRACE normal equation of inter-satellite tracking data for estimation of soil moisture and groundwater in Australia

“…The changes in terrestrial water storage ( TWS) derived from the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) data products have been used in the last decade to study global water resources, including groundwater depletion in India and the Middle East (Rodell et al, 2009;Voss et al, 2013), water storage accumulation in Canada (Lambert et al, 2013), and flood-influenced water storage fluctuation in Cambodia (Tangdamrongsub et al, 2016). The gravity data obtained from GRACE satellites are commonly processed and released in three different product levels (L) that increase in the amount of processing, L1B -satellite tracking data (e.g.…”

Using in situ vertical displacements to characterize changes in moisture load

“…The utility of the technique was extended to a 300 m deep well by Sophocleous et al [2006], and Bardsley and Campbell [2007] showed that using piezometric measurements in two formations improved accuracy compared to measurements from a single piezometer. Lambert et al [2013] showed that the total moisture changes recorded by observation wells in deep confined aquifers correlate well with total gravity changes determined from the GRACE gravity changes.…”

Mapping groundwater storage variations with GRACE: a case study in Alberta, Canada

“…In Canada, non-water mass (mainly the Earth's crust and mantle) redistribution is largely caused by the glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) around the Hudson Bay, which is removed using the GPS-derived GIA estimation as discussed in Lambert et al (2013). The TWS variations after the GIA correction have been extracted from the GRACE models by the two-step method (Huang et al 2012), which has been modified by adapting its parameters to RL05 models.…”

“…The monthly degree-two term C 20 time series is better determined by the satellite laser ranging (Cheng et al 2013), and is thus used to replace the corresponding C 20 of each GRACE model. In addition, a gravity rate map derived from the GPS vertical velocity map using the ratio between the gravity change rates by absolute gravity measurements and the GPS vertical velocities at the same locations was used to remove the mass redistribution effect due to the glacial isostatic adjustment (Lambert et al 2013).…”

“…As the largest freshwater storage component of hydrological systems, groundwater interacts with other land water components in rivers, lakes, soil, snow, ice and plants, and responds to changes in climate at regional and global scales (Green et al 2011;Perez-Valdivia et al 2012;Lambert et al 2013;Watras et al 2014). It is well known that the amount of groundwater storage varies in time and space due to recharge and discharge processes and the spatial variation in aquifer capacity and properties.…”