NASA Joint Workshop August 21 -25 2006 Conference

NASA Joint Workshop August 21 -25, 2006 Conference Center, UMD Near-Real Time Monitoring of Global Lakes and Reservoirs: Water Resources, Irrigation Potential and Agriculture Charon Birkett ESSIC University of Maryland Brian Beckley SGT NASA/GSFC Curt Reynolds, Brad Doorn USDA/FAS/PECAD David Adamec NASA/GSFC Naval Research Laboratory

Satellite Radar Altimetry - Historical perspective Early studies and validations SEASAT R. L. Brooks, 1982 - Mapping of Canadian Lakes J. G. Olliver, 1987 - US Lakes and Caspian Sea Rapley et al. , 1987 - Non-ocean surfaces A. Au et al. , 1989 - (+GEOS-3) Caspian, Black Seas Cudlip et al. , 1992 - Sudd Marshes, Amazon Basin GEOSAT Guzkowska et al. , 1990 - Non-ocean surfaces Koblinsky et al. , 1993 - Amazon Basin Morris and Gill, 1994 - USA Great Lakes Birkett, 1994 -Global outlook ERS-1 Scott et al. , 1994 - Non-ocean surfaces TOPEX/POSEIDON Morris and Gill, 1994 - The Great Lakes Birkett, 1995 - The Great Lakes and Global Dalton and Kite, 1995 - Lake Victoria, Africa Birkett, 1998 - Global Rivers and Wetlands

Validation (examples from Birkett, JGR, 1995 and Ross, Mc. Kellip, Moore, Fendley, V+V Report, NASA SCC. 2005) Application (to lake, reservoir inland sea, river, floodplain, and wetland zone)

PECAD Objectives To examine the contribution of lake/reservoir elevation information for a) Determination of irrigation potential in agriculture-sensitive regions b) General indicators of drought/high-water situations Project Requirements To provide lake-level variations in near-real time for a designated set of lakes and reservoirs. Product = graphical + text output, relative variations (meters) with respect to an historical mean Data Sets Archive TOPEX/POSEIDON (1992 -2002) Near Real Time IGDR Jason-1(post 2002) Temporal Sampling = 10 days Time Period Coverage = September 1992 to present day Expectations 60 -100 lakes (~180 large lakes with expected success rate of ~35%) Elevation Accuracy < 5 cm rms for the largest lakes, 10 -20 cm rms for smaller (<500 sq km) lakes and calm-water surfaces, tens of centimeters rms for ribbon lakes, extreme topography Product Delivery Latency = 7 -14 days after satellite overpass Product Availability = http: //www. pecad. fas. usda. gov/cropexplorer/global_reservoir

PHASE 1 (USDA funding FY 2003) Focus on Africa, with on-line T/P and J-1 products, and preliminary database construction January, 2002 Sep 02, Jan 03 December, 2003 Spring, 2004 Preliminary project discussions USDA/ESSIC Proposal submission, NASA/GSFC Task Preliminary products and temporary WWW site Web system installed on USDA Crop. Explorer site PHASE 2 (USDA funding FY 2004+2005) Global outlook, ~100 targets, web site completion, with routine product delivery and updates Semi-automated system in place - weekly updates Verification and Validation (Benchmarking Report) NASA/Stennis Space Center NASA/CNES Jason-1 data problems identified but not rectified. PHASE 3 (USDA/FY 06, NASA Jan 06 -Feb 07, NASA FY 06 -08*) Operational updates, expansion + enhancement of the lake products. (Investigation of technical data issues NASA/CNES/NRL/ESA q+q)* Expansion: NRL GFO and NASA/CNES Topex-Tandem mission data Enhancement: Revision of T/P and Jason-1 products Contribution to and interaction with ISS/DSS and Benchmarking

Integrated Systems Solution - USDA Crop Explorer INPUTS Altimetric Repeat Track Techniques SGT/UMD Adaptations for lake and reservoir monitoring Data Earth Observations Satellite Radar Altimetry T/P, Jason-1 GFO, Topex-Tandem (ERS, ENVISAT) OUTPUTS Products (GST) Computation of Stage Measurement OUTCOMES IMPACTS Validation and Verification ESSIC/UMD Accuracy and delivery checks USDA/FAS Global Crop Production DSS Integration of multiple Datasets and Modeling Outputs Near-Real Time Operations GST/USDA Crop Condition and Production Research: NASA, UMD, GST Application and Impact USDA + other users Shared Datasets for Policy and Management Decisions Partners: USDA/FAS

Altimetric graph+text products LAKENET US non-profit organization with database archive, data set collation + www links. USGS Global Visualization Viewer 3 -D Imagery

http: //www. pecad. fas. usda. gov/cropexplorer/global_reservoir On-line and operational with ~70 target lakes and weekly updates

Regional Drought in East Africa Lake Turkana Lake Victoria Lake Tanganyika http: //www. pecad. fas. usda. gov/ cropexplorer/global_reservoir/ Decrease in lake water levels since 1997/98 El Nino

Water levels begin to drop in 2001, after the Owens Falls Dam Extension is inaugurated. Owens Falls Dam was commissioned in 1954 at Jinja Uganda, Lake Victoria’s only outlet. Lake Victoria’s water level on February 25, 2006 is approximately 10. 53 meters, the lowest water level since 1946. The water level recovers slightly during recent rain season, but drops again and is at 10. 65 meters on August 12, 2006 Regional drought, excessive water releases for power generation after 2001 and non-compliance of the 1954 Nile Treaty Data Source: Historical water level gauge data from Jinja, Uganda (outlet). Satellite radar altimeter data from USDS/NASA/UMD at: http: //www. pecad. fas. usda. gov/ cropexplorer/global_reservoir/ U. S. Department of Agricultural (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) Production Estimates & Crop Assessment Division (PECAD)

Project Expansion Utilization of the Naval Research Lab’s Geosat Follow-On mission data set NRL

Enhancement of existing products NASA/CNES Jason-1 GDR versus IGDR

Outlook - Additional and Future Satellite Missions Topex-Tandem 2002 -2005 GFO 2000 -current Jason-2 2008 -2011 10 days 297, 69 ESA missions do have far greater spatial coverage although this will be offset by a lower temporal resolution for many of the smaller lakes. Observation frequency to be investigated for this application.