Observing the hydrology of China from space - detection of anthropogenic changes in hydrology using spaceborne measurements

In this study we focus on the use of remotely sensed data, mainly data from the GRACE mission, for the detection of hydrological changes in China. More specifically, the Hai - Huai - Huang basins and the impoundment of the Three Gorges reservoir are studied. Due to noise and the required filtering of the monthly GRACE gravity field solutions there is a limitation on both the magnitude of changes and the spatial scale at which changes occur for these changes to be successfully detected. We investigate if we can detect changes in hydrology in these areas and if it is possible to ascribe detected hydrological changes to anthropogenic water use or water management. The conducted research can be divided into two parts. In the first part we perform a large scale analysis on the different river basins. Precipitation, evapotranspiration and soil moisture are considered for the individual basins and used when analyzing the total water storage variations as computed from GRACE gravity field solutions. Modeled soil moisture variations are found to be unreliable in (part of) the research area. We make assumptions to limit the modeled soil moisture variation and try to compute the groundwater depletion in this area more accurately. In the second part we compute the change in reservoir volume of the Three Gorges reservoir over time using laser altimetry and a Digital Elevation Model. Forward modeling if this signal shows good agreement with results found from monthly GRACE gravity field solutions.

Subject

GRACE
hydrology
groundwater
extraction
3 Gorges
ICESat
satellite
China

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http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:4fbfd196-72c1-4593-b15c-fe8a2f2e2767

Embargo date

2011-05-29

Part of collection

Student theses

Document type

master thesis

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thesis_rvanharen_final.pdf

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