Togetherness through Technology - Did I really just say that?

I used to think that technology was the antithesis of sustainability. How better to be environmentally conservative than to be completely off the grid? It took me years to even get internet in my first apartment. Cell phones came and went but never played a big part in my life. Social media, I considered, was for those who didn't have any social skills. I was for all purposes a happy Luddite ignoring a growing part of the world around me. 

There were increasing stories of social media's power to do good for the environment and for society. Cell phones and blogs can be used by those living off the grid who otherwise would not have a phone to gather, share information about common resources or to find free sources of food and fuel in new cities. People were sharing their stories of environmental impact in their own backyard and making a difference on public opinion. Facebook was an open way to stay connected to Greenpeace and National Geographic and to gather like minded people for volunteer events. Powerful collectives of environmentalists gather over the internet to share news, art, and initiatives. Still......I always held off.

Well, after visiting the 7th World Water Forum in Daegu, South Korea, I'm firmly on the side of technology. The United States agencies such as NASA, the USGS and EPA are creating powerful tools for environmental analysis, planning, and monitoring purposes using advanced space technology. What's more, these resources are completely open and free to the public. They are being shared across the globe to distribute real-time data on precipitation, snow cover, temperature, soils and to predict the occurance of droughts or analyze flood-vulnerable regions across the globe.

NASA currently has 18 satellites in orbit around Earth. Those satellites are used to accurately measure changes in surface temperature, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, snow pack, groundwater, and vegetation. These tools are used to understand, characterize, and predict each stage of the water cycle. Changes in surface temperature can be entered into well-established equations to compute evapotranspiration rates on the surface. A reduction in evapotranspiration rates is a key indicator of less available soil moisture in the ground. Remotely sensed readings, such as readings of soil moisture and vegetation changes, are calibrated to actual ground observations on vadose-zone water, to better analyze the water cycle. These measurements of the water cycle are corrected for precipitation using the TRMM mission, which measures worldwide precipitation, thereby bringing less uncertainty into the equations and improving spatial characterization.

On a global scale, NASA’s Soil Moisture Active/Passive mission (SMAP) is used to directly measure soil moisture. Microwave signal emissions are highly correlated to water in the top five centimeters of the soil. Global soil moisture readouts are reported every three days. NASA’s Airborne Snow Observatory monitors snow pack and snow depth, which is then used to predict the availability of surface water in the coming melt season. NASA’s GRACE Mission was launched in 2002 to monitor for changes in groundwater storage. Two satellites orbit the earth taking gravity readings off of one another. Neither satellite actually measures the earth. Rather, by measuring changes in gravity readings, the volume of available groundwater beneath the surface of the earth can be calculated. The readings are reported monthly. This mission is based on the theory that the total gravity of the solid earth stays relatively the same from one month to the next. If there are differences in the total gravity readings month to month, it must be from the movement of groundwater. Groundwater is the only major earth material that move in large volumes in relatively short time.

By being able to predict future stages of the water cycle, this data can be used to monitor for potential upcoming droughts, in the Western United States for example. World-wide, soil moisture is a leading indicator of the availability of water for vegetation. By being able to accurately measure losses in soil moisture, we are now able to predict near-future agricultural droughts. By monitoring for decreases in snow pack, the future availability of water for agriculture use can be predicted a few months ahead of growing season. By monitoring for cumulative losses in groundwater storage, the GRACE mission can assess regional and global trends in groundwater storage, and also monitor anomalous events. By measuring changes in storage, the GRACE data can also be used to calibrate water budget methods of calculating precipitation, run-off, and evapotranspiration.

The remotely-sensed data collected by NASA and available to the public provide powerful tools for creating complete images of the water cycle, from snow melt, to surface water, evapotranspiration, to soil moisture to groundwater. These tools are available for use on NASA’s website. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Grace/#.VUNZhPlViko http://pmm.nasa.gov/trmm http://smap.jpl.nasa.gov/

An interview with Dr. John Bolten, PhD, a physical scientist for NASA, on April 15th, 2015, further highlighted how these tools are being used across the globe. The Foreign Agricultural Survey (FAS) has demonstrated the ability to predict agricultural anomalies based on soil moisture. TRMM can make future predictions based on yesterday's conditions. All data is publicly available. However, the data from TRMM needs to be corrected with rain gauge data from the ground. So TRMM data is more accurate in areas of the world that have the resources to constantly measure rainfall. He explained how GRACE can be used to calibrate water budget methods of estimating water volumes. Water budget methods are a simple equation where precipitation into the system minus evapotranspiration and run off equals the change in groundwater storage. Because GRACE measures changes in groundwater storage, we can better estimate evapotranspiration and run off. He again emphasized that this data was free, and there was training on the NASA website.

NASA is actively working to bring this data to the rest of the world. NASA provides training on using the information gathered by remote sensing on precipitation, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, groundwater and water quality. NASA provides one to two day courses ad webinars on this information.

NASA and USAID work to develop small projects that work with specialists to adopt remote sensing data to their needs. The Servir Network has approximately six locations around the globe. It takes the data from NASA and other satellite data and makes it available to the public. They develop and process the data to meet specific applications. They do this by identifying need, making science products, building capacity (meeting with stakeholders to provide training), and implementing their product.

NASA currently has a large call out for proposals to partner with other government agencies to collaborate on the use of this data. In South America, NASA and NOAA develop capabilities and user training. In Columbia, there has been a strong interest from the government to collaborate with NASA and NOAA to apply their remote sensing data to climate change and hydrological issues.

NASA and NOAA work together to improve data observations and predictions of the water cycle in Asia. It is called the Asian Water Cycle Initiative. They perform a climate change impact assessment in each country. They try to predict what aspects of the water cycle will change due to droughts and floods. They develop a flood early warning system using satellite rainfall production and hydrological models.

NASA is also developing the Strategy for Water Security. It is a US project, a collaborative approach between the US government, USGS and NASA.

The USGS is partnering with third world countries to deliver high tech solutions to finding groundwater in times of drought. The United States Geological Survey (USGS), funded by USAID, uses remote sensing to predict short term changes in available soil moisture. Models for soil moisture are created using satellite data on temperature and precipitation. For instance, the 2010 – 2011 drought in Somalia was predicted three months early. Worldwide models for cropland and rangeland are updated daily by the USGS. However, even if we know when a drought will occur, what good does that do for the people suffering from it? During the 2005 war in Darfur and Sudan and the resulting refugee crisis, during which 2.5 million people were displaced, emergency supplies of water were desperately needed. However, the success rate of finding groundwater through traditional geophysical and drilling methods was only 33%. This situation challenged the scientific community to develop better tools to find water for struggling populations in emergency situations.

Remote sensing satellite data can be used to predict the location and potential volume of water sources underground. The hydrological parameters of the potential aquifer need to be inferred from the combination of observable and historic data. Historic geologic information must be gathered from government and private sources. Vegetation images collected by LANDSAT technology are used. The SRTM satellite collects radar images of terrain, which can be used to model watersheds, and predict where drainage occurs after rainfall. Contour maps are created and the number of watersheds is calculated. Microwave satellites, such as ESRI or SAR, can penetrate 10 to 15 m below the ground surface, and extract all drainage patterns by imaging the locations of buried river networks. Once all available data is collected, the resulting images are processed using GIS layers. In the resulting map, everything bright reveals the potential location of groundwater; everything else dark reveals no potential for groundwater. A fracture layer is added to the GIS image. Fractures, when filled with permeable sedimentary material and located in a drainage basin, represent the potential for deep groundwater. A fracture can be a source of a large volume of water, but it must be drilled directly into for extraction.

Once the locations of potential aquifers are mapped, further interpretation is needed to estimate the volume and type of recharge. Alluvial recharge is preferred over fracture recharge. The method is to look for terrain features. Mountains collect a lot of precipitation. We must assume, in arid environments, that the vast majority of this precipitation is evaporated before it infiltrates. If we assume a 99% evaporation rate, 1% of water is available for infiltration to the aquifer. This 1% can represent millions of cubic meters of water. Therefore, the next step is to combine the GIS groundwater potential map with layers representing available rainfall. Watersheds are divided into subwatersheds, and the ratio of rainfall to surface area is calculated. The higher the resulting coefficient, the higher the possibility of finding water. Layers are also added for vegetation type, soil type, land use, and geology, in order to produce the most useful product for planning purposes.

Another use of the GIS map is to identify areas that can be used as mini-dams. Paths of ephemeral streams are mapped. Those feeding alluvial shallow aquifers are identified. At the narrowest part of their path, rocks can be gathered in the field to store surface water. The temporary storage of surface water, ie slowing down the flow of the river, can help recharge the aquifer by allowing a longer time for infiltration. 

In Ethiopia, the application of this remote sensing technique has transformed the drilling success rate from 25% to 80%. In Kenya, in the northwest Turkana County, 5 large aquifers have been identified. This region is known as the driest in all of Kenya. Now it may be known as a desert oasis. 

Internationally, the German government's Federal Institute for GeoSciences an Natural Resources has created the New Global Map of Groundwater Vulnerability to Floods and Droughts. There is a rising awareness that we can do better to respond to droughts, and floods, particularly if they are predictable. We can map geologic characteristics and understand their physical environment, and map areas that have different degrees of vulnerability to droughts and floods, and which areas are better protected. However, the lack of data on a global scale does pose problems for calibration and georeferencing. An area characterized as low groundwater vulnerability to droughts and floods would demonstrate deep seated aquifers, large sedimentary basins; however these areas have limited replenishment so they must be managed more carefully. An area that has high vulnerability to droughts and floods would demonstrate carbonate rock, fluvial deposits, local and shallow aquifers; these areas are less suited to use groundwater in emergency situations. This rating system was mapped globally, and is available at http://www.whymap.org/whymap/EN/Home/whymap_node.html . The key concepts that they wanted to communicate is that we have data on which groundwater resources can be targeted for use in emergency situations, and because we can predict which resources will be less vulnerable to the effects of climate change. But we need to improve and solve the lack of hydrogeological data and knowledge world wide. We need more ground data to calibrate our models, and we need to disseminate the information we have.

All in all, I came away from the conference with a much broadened perspective on how the US and other developed countries are using technological achievements to imrpove the resiliency of other nations to climate change. Many organizations are actively addressing the challenge of spreading the powerful data tools available to the public and getting them into the hands of the stakeholders who need them the most.