For 15 Years, GRACE Tracked Freshwater Movements Around the World

An animated graphic showing the areas of focus for NASA s Earth System Observatory is a set of Earth-focused missions designed to provide key information to guide efforts related to climate change, disaster mitigation, fighting forest fires, and improving real-time agricultural processes. With the Earth System Observatory, each satellite will be uniquely designed to complement the others, working in tandem to create a 3D, holistic view of Earth, from bedrock to atmosphere.The observatory follows recommendations from the 2017 Earth Science Decadal Survey by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, which lays out ambitious but critically necessary research and observation guidance.Areas of focus for the observatory include:Aerosols: Answering the critical question of how aerosols affect the global energy balance, a key source of uncertainty in predicting climate change.Cloud, Convection, and Precipitation: Tackling the largest sources of uncertainty in future projections of climate change, air quality forecasting, and prediction of severe weather.Mass Change: Providing drought assessment and forecasting, associated planning for water use for agriculture, as well as supporting natural hazard response.Surface Biology and Geology: Understanding climate changes that impact food and agriculture, habitation, and natural resources, by answering open questions about the fluxes of carbon, water, nutrients, and energy within and between ecosystems and the atmosphere, the ocean, and the Earth.Surface Deformation and Change: Quantifying models of sea-level and landscape change driven by climate change, hazard forecasts, and disaster impact assessments, including dynamics of earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, glaciers, groundwater, and Earth’s interior.

Fifteen years of satellite data show changes in freshwater around the world. NASA satellite observations combined with maps of human activities show where freshwater levels are changing and why. The researchers found that a combination of natural and human pressures can lead to complex scenarios in some regions. In northwestern China, freshwater is complex with glaciers, rivers, agriculture, and groundwater. Overall it shows a loss of freshwater. The Okavango Delta shows an increase in freshwater between 2002 and 2010, likely due to natural variability. A true color satellite image of California shows drought in the region which corresponds with decreases in freshwater reserves. In spring 2018, NASA launched a satellite pair, GRACE Follow-On, to continue studying water movement around the planet. For More InformationSee [NASA.gov](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-satellites-reveal-major-shifts-in-global-freshwater)