Assessing Groundwater Depletion and Dynamics Using GRACE and InSAR: Potential and Limitations

Abstract

In the last decade, remote sensing of the temporal variation of ground level and gravity has improved our understanding of groundwater dynamics and storage. Mass changes are measured by GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellites, whereas ground deformation is measured by processing synthetic aperture radar satellites data using the InSAR (Interferometry of Synthetic Aperture Radar) techniques. Both methods are complementary and offer different sensitivities to aquifer system processes. GRACE is sensitive to mass changes over large spatial scales (more than 100,000 km 2 ). As such, it fails in providing groundwater storage change estimates at local or regional scales relevant to most aquifer systems, and at which most groundwater management schemes are applied. However, InSAR measures ground displacement due to aquifer response to fluid-pressure changes. InSAR applications to groundwater depletion assessments are limited to aquifer systems susceptible to measurable deformation. Furthermore, the inversion of InSAR-derived displacement maps into volume of depleted groundwater storage (both reversible and largely irreversible) is confounded by vertical and horizontal variability of sediment compressibility. During the last decade, both techniques have shown increasing interest in the scientific community to complement available in situ observations where they are insufficient. In this review, we present the theoretical and conceptual bases of each method, and present idealized scenarios to highlight the potential benefits and challenges of combining these techniques to remotely assess groundwater storage changes and other aspects of the dynamics of aquifer systems.

Groundwater Loss and Aquifer System Compaction in San Joaquin Valley During 2012–2015 Drought

“…Measurements of land subsidence in conjunction with groundwater level data can be used to quantify mechanical properties of aquifer system (Miller & Shirzaei, ) and to assess the success of water conservation plans (Miller et al, ). Recent works combine GRACE measurements with InSAR estimates of land subsidence to characterize groundwater dynamics in Brazil, Central Mexico, and California as well as to discuss their potentials and their limitations (Argus et al, ; Castellazzi, Martel, Galloway, et al, ; Castellazzi, Martel, Rivera, et al, ; Hu et al, ).…”

Disentangling and Parameterizing Shallow Sources of Subsidence: Application to a Reclaimed Coastal Area, Flevoland, the Netherlands

“…A parameter estimation procedure can then be employed to improve the knowledge about these parameters. Often, a trial‐and‐error history matching technique is used [see, e.g., Teatini et al, , Castellazzi et al, ], but it is considered more efficient to employ a mathematically based technique. As an example, Bakr () used a maximum likelihood technique for estimation of soil compression parameters in the Jakarta area.…”

Recent changes in terrestrial water storage in the Upper Nile Basin: an evaluation of commonly used gridded GRACE products

“…1) surface water storage in rivers, lakes, and wetlands ( SWS), soil moisture storage ( SMS), ice and snow water storage ( ISS), and groundwater storage ( GWS). Over the last decade, GRACE measurements have become an important hydrological tool for quantifying basin-scale TWS (Güntner, 2008;Xie et al, 2012;Hu and Jiao, 2015) and are increasingly being used to assess spatio-temporal changes in specific water stores Shamsudduha et al, 2012;Jiang et al, 2014;Castellazzi et al, 2016;Long et al, 2016;Nanteza et al, 2016) where timeseries records of other individual freshwater stores are available (Eq. 1).…”