Description du projet
Lever les yeux pour trouver de l’eau sous la surface
Sous la surface de la Terre, il y a de l’eau – dans les fissures et les cavités du sol, du sable et de la roche. Si la capacité à détecter les eaux souterraines est cruciale, il n’existe actuellement aucune source de données dans le monde qui fournisse de manière opérationnelle et cohérente des informations sur l’évolution des ressources en eaux souterraines sur la base d’observations et avec une couverture mondiale. Pour combler cette lacune, le projet G3P, financé par l’UE, associera la science et l’industrie de toute l’Europe pour mettre en évidence les variations du stockage des eaux souterraines en s’appuyant sur les données gravimétriques des satellites GRACE et GRACE-FO. GRACE était une mission satellitaire conduite de 2002 à 2017. GRACE-FO a suivi en 2018 pour assurer la continuité de l’ensemble des données GRACE. Si l’approche du projet n’est pas novatrice, elle est de portée mondiale et repose essentiellement sur des données d’observation satellitaires plutôt que sur des simulations.
Objectif
Groundwater is one of the most important freshwater resources for mankind and for ecosystems. Assessing groundwater resources and developing sustainable water management plans based on this resource is a major field of activity for science, water authorities and consultancies worldwide. Due to its fundamental role in the Earth’s water and energy cycles, groundwater has been declared as an Essential Climate Variable (ECV) by GCOS, the Global Climate Observing System. The Copernicus Services, however, do not yet deliver data on this fundamental resource, nor is there any other data source worldwide that operationally provides information on changing groundwater resources in a consistent way, observation-based, and with global coverage. This gap will be closed by G3P, the Global Gravity-based Groundwater Product.
The G3P consortium combines key expertise from science and industry across Europe that optimally allows to (1) capitalize from the unique capability of GRACE and GRACE-FO satellite gravimetry as the only remote sensing technology to monitor subsurface mass variations and thus groundwater storage change for large areas, (2) incorporate and advance a wealth of products on storage compartments of the water cycle that are part of the Copernicus portfolio, and (3) disseminate unprecedented information on changing groundwater storage to the global and European user communities, including a European use case as a demonstrator for industry potential in the water sector. In combination, the G3P development is a novel and cross-cutting extension of the Copernicus portfolio towards essential information on the changing state of water resources at European and global scales. G3P is timely given the recent launch of GRACE-FO that opens up the chance for gravity-based time series with sufficient length to monitor climate-induced and human-induced processes over more than 20 years, and to boost European space technology on board these satellites.
Champ scientifique
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental scienceshydrology
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringsatellite technology
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringremote sensing
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringnatural resources managementwater management
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinateur
14473 POTSDAM
Allemagne