Groundwater consumption is critical to both urban and agricultural systems. Urban population centers concentrate groundwater extraction, while groundwater is also in high demand for crop production and aquaculture. Groundwater can largely be “fossil" aquifer water that may not be recharging.

In the face of climate change, improving the sustainable management of groundwater, thanks to better understanding and continuous monitoring, is more than ever needed. Measuring changes and observe ongoing dynamics of groundwater resources represent not only an effective strategy to respond to the increasing scarcity of resources, but also a key approach to increase local communities' adaptive capacity and resilience to climate variability and natural climatic phenomena.

GRACE is an international cooperative US-German dual-minisatellite SST (Satellite-to-Satellite Tracking) geodetic mission with the overall objective to obtain long-term data with unprecedented accuracy for global (high-resolution) models of the mean and the time-variable components of the Earth's gravity field. GRACE is also part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program (ESSP). The NASA-DLR (German space agency) GRACE mission allows the detection and monitoring groundwater changes from space. As changes in the gravimetric field are indicative of changes in groundwater, GRACE provides more than 10 year-long data record for scientific analysis. This information is critical to water, agriculture and urban planners and managers.

The FAO Land and Water Division is promoting an Adaptation Fund Technical Webinar to discuss the topic and learn more about groundwater assessment using GRACE. The session will take place on Wednesday, 7th October 2020 at 14:00 CEST.

Keynote presentation by: Professor Norman L. Jones, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Brigham Young University (BYU) & Principle Investigator, NASA SERVIR geospatial information tools for sustainable groundwater management project in West Africa

Register to the webinar here