Water Storage Trends in High Mountain Asia
Changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) in High Mountain Asia (HMA) could have major societal impacts, as the region's large reservoirs of glaciers, snow, and groundwater provide a freshwater source to more than one billion people. We seek to quantify and close the budget of secular changes...
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doaj-491c5bdc35b4496db818103915ecee7b2020-11-24T21:38:51ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Earth Science2296-64632019-09-01710.3389/feart.2019.00235473021Water Storage Trends in High Mountain AsiaBryant D. Loomis0Alexandra S. Richey1Anthony A. Arendt2Ravi Appana3Y.-J. C. Deweese4Bart A. Forman5Sujay V. Kumar6Terence J. Sabaka7David E. Shean8Geodesy and Geophysics Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United StatesDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, United StatesApplied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United StatesDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, United StatesApplied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United StatesCivil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United StatesHydrological Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United StatesGeodesy and Geophysics Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United StatesCivil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United StatesChanges in terrestrial water storage (TWS) in High Mountain Asia (HMA) could have major societal impacts, as the region's large reservoirs of glaciers, snow, and groundwater provide a freshwater source to more than one billion people. We seek to quantify and close the budget of secular changes in TWS over the span of the GRACE satellite mission (2003–2016). To assess the TWS trend budget we consider a new high-resolution mass trend product determined directly from GRACE L1B data, glacier mass balance derived from Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), groundwater variability determined from confined and unconfined well observations, and terrestrial water budget estimates from a suite of land surface model simulations with the NASA Land Information System (LIS). This effort is successful at closing the aggregated TWS trend budget over the entire HMA region, the glaciated portion of HMA, and the Indus and Ganges basins, where the full-region trends are primarily due to the glacier mass balance and groundwater signals. Additionally, we investigate the closure of TWS trends at individual 1-arc-degree mascons (area ≈12,000 km2); a significant improvement in spatial resolution over previous analyses of GRACE-derived trends. This mascon-level analysis reveals locations where the TWS trends are well-explained by the independent datasets, as well as regions where they are not; identifying specific geographic areas where additional data and model improvements are needed. The accurate characterization of total TWS trends and its components presented here is critical to understanding the complex dynamics of the region, and is a necessary step toward projecting future water mass changes in HMA.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/feart.2019.00235/fullterrestrial water storageHigh Mountain AsiaGRACE masconsglacier mass balancegroundwaterland information system |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Bryant D. Loomis Alexandra S. Richey Anthony A. Arendt Ravi Appana Y.-J. C. Deweese Bart A. Forman Sujay V. Kumar Terence J. Sabaka David E. Shean |
spellingShingle |
Bryant D. Loomis Alexandra S. Richey Anthony A. Arendt Ravi Appana Y.-J. C. Deweese Bart A. Forman Sujay V. Kumar Terence J. Sabaka David E. Shean Water Storage Trends in High Mountain Asia Frontiers in Earth Science terrestrial water storage High Mountain Asia GRACE mascons glacier mass balance groundwater land information system |
author_facet |
Bryant D. Loomis Alexandra S. Richey Anthony A. Arendt Ravi Appana Y.-J. C. Deweese Bart A. Forman Sujay V. Kumar Terence J. Sabaka David E. Shean |
author_sort |
Bryant D. Loomis |
title |
Water Storage Trends in High Mountain Asia |
title_short |
Water Storage Trends in High Mountain Asia |
title_full |
Water Storage Trends in High Mountain Asia |
title_fullStr |
Water Storage Trends in High Mountain Asia |
title_full_unstemmed |
Water Storage Trends in High Mountain Asia |
title_sort |
water storage trends in high mountain asia |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
series |
Frontiers in Earth Science |
issn |
2296-6463 |
publishDate |
2019-09-01 |
description |
Changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) in High Mountain Asia (HMA) could have major societal impacts, as the region's large reservoirs of glaciers, snow, and groundwater provide a freshwater source to more than one billion people. We seek to quantify and close the budget of secular changes in TWS over the span of the GRACE satellite mission (2003–2016). To assess the TWS trend budget we consider a new high-resolution mass trend product determined directly from GRACE L1B data, glacier mass balance derived from Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), groundwater variability determined from confined and unconfined well observations, and terrestrial water budget estimates from a suite of land surface model simulations with the NASA Land Information System (LIS). This effort is successful at closing the aggregated TWS trend budget over the entire HMA region, the glaciated portion of HMA, and the Indus and Ganges basins, where the full-region trends are primarily due to the glacier mass balance and groundwater signals. Additionally, we investigate the closure of TWS trends at individual 1-arc-degree mascons (area ≈12,000 km2); a significant improvement in spatial resolution over previous analyses of GRACE-derived trends. This mascon-level analysis reveals locations where the TWS trends are well-explained by the independent datasets, as well as regions where they are not; identifying specific geographic areas where additional data and model improvements are needed. The accurate characterization of total TWS trends and its components presented here is critical to understanding the complex dynamics of the region, and is a necessary step toward projecting future water mass changes in HMA. |
topic |
terrestrial water storage High Mountain Asia GRACE mascons glacier mass balance groundwater land information system |
url |
https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/feart.2019.00235/full |
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