Study by incoming U of S research chair finds water security at risk
A first of its kind study by a NASA water scientist finds water security is at risk in 34 distinct hotspots around the world, attributed to climate change, seasonal variability, or human water management.
“Water security is more tenuous than we thought. Even in Canada, there are vast regions that are losing too much water due to climate change, or gaining too much water due to changes in seasonal phenomena like El Nino,” said Jay Famiglietti, senior writer of the study, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory senior water scientist.
Famiglietti was also named the Canada 150 Research Chair in Hydrology and Remote Sensing for the U of S, and joins the Global Institute for Water Security as executive director, as of July 1.
For years, the researchers looked at the data from NASA’S GRACE mission, and found over the past 15 years, the patterns of freshwater availability have changed dramatically.
“The end of the mission in December 2017 gave us the opportunity to very carefully look back over our past, regional results, and to assimilate them into a global picture that represents the 15 year lifetime of the GRACE mission,” said Famiglietti.
NASA’S GRACE mission, which was launched on March 17, 2002, and ended in October 2017. The goal of the mission was to help create an understanding of the processes affecting the climate, including measuring the water cycle, changes in deep ocean currents, and the distribution of glaciers and ice sheets.
“The observations from GRACE of the patterns and temporal variability of global mass change in the Earth system have been proven to be essential for understanding a number of important processes, like sea level change, heat absorbed by the oceans, and continental ground water change,” said Frank Webb, project scientist for the GRACE-FO.
“In addition to providing unique insights into Earth’s changing climate, GRACE data have been used to estimate total water storage on land, from groundwater changes in deep aquifers to changes in soil moisture and surface water, giving water managers new tools to measure the impact of droughts and monitor and forecast floods,” he said.