Abstract
Water storage anomalies from the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission (2002-
present) have been shown to be a unique descriptor of large-scale hydrological extreme events. However, possibly
due to its coarse temporal (monthly to weekly) and spatial (> 150.000 km2) resolution, the comprehensive infor-
mation from GRACE on total water storage variations has rarely been evaluated for flood or drought monitoring
or forecasting so far. In the context of the Horizon 2020 funded European Gravity Service for Improved Emer-
gency Management (EGSIEM) project, we evaluate two approaches to solve the spatio-temporal variations of the
Earth’s gravity field as daily solutions through comparison to selected historical extreme events in medium-large
river basins (Ganges-Brahmaputra, Lower Mekong, Danube, Elbe). These comparisons show that highs and lows
of GRACE-derived total water storage are closely related to the occurrence of hydrological extremes and serve as
an early indicator of these events. The degree to which the daily GRACE solutions contain high-frequent temporal
hydrological information, e.g. individual flood peaks, is related to the size of the extreme event.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published - 19 Apr 2016 |
Event | European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2016: EGU 2016 - Wien, Austria Duration: 17 Apr 2016 → 22 Apr 2016 http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2016/EGU2016-13356-1.pdf http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2016/orals/20327 |
Conference
Conference | European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2016 |
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Country/Territory | Austria |
City | Wien |
Period | 17/04/16 → 22/04/16 |
Internet address |
Keywords
- GRACE
- hydrology
- extreme events
- floods
Fields of Expertise
- Sustainable Systems