Descrizione del progetto
Guardare il cielo per trovare l’acqua sotto terra
Al di sotto della superficie terrestre, nelle crepe e negli spazi presenti nel suolo, nella sabbia e nella roccia, vi è l’acqua. Sebbene la capacità di rilevare le acque freatiche sia fondamentale, non sono tuttora disponibili fonti di dati a livello mondiale in grado di fornire sotto il profilo operativo informazioni sul cambiamento delle risorse freatiche in modo coerente, basato su osservazioni e a copertura globale. Per colmare questa lacuna, il progetto G3P, finanziato dall’UE, riunirà alcuni attori del panorama scientifico e industriale provenienti da diverse parti dell’Europa allo scopo di mettere in evidenza le variazioni dell’accumulo di acque freatiche mediante l’impiego dei dati satellitari relativi alla gravità di GRACE e GRACE-FO. GRACE è stata una missione satellitare che ha avuto luogo dal 2002 al 2017, mentre GRACE-FO l’ha seguita nel 2018 al fine di fornire continuità al set di dati acquisito sino a tal momento. Sebbene l’approccio adottato dal progetto non sia nuovo, la sua portata è globale e si basa al massimo su dati ricavati dall’osservazione satellitare, piuttosto che dalla simulazione.
Obiettivo
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.
Campo scientifico
- 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
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinatore
14473 POTSDAM
Germania