The Potential of Hydrogeodesy to Address Water‐Related and Sustainability Challenges
Creators: name: Fluet‐Chouinard, Etienne
name: Pena, Francisco
name: Famiglietti, James
name: Nielsen, Karina
name: Cretaux, Jean‐François
name: Papa, Fabrice
name: Robinson, Abigail
name: Siles, Gabriela
name: Jaramillo, Fernando
name: Hashemi, Hossein
name: Fleischmann, Ayan
name: Posada‐Marín, José Andrés
name: Kalantari, Zahra
name: Castellazzi, Pascal
name: Tarpanelli, Angelica
name: Destouni, Georgia
name: Borsa, Adrian
name: Reager, J. T.
name: Di Baldassarre, Giuliano
name: Wdowinski, Shimon
name: Salazar, Juan F.
name: Simard, Marc
name: Elmi, Omid
name: Hubinger, Clara
name: Virkki, Vili
name: Munier, Simon
name: Wang, Chao
name: Fenoglio, Luciana
name: Fassoni‐Andrade, Alice
name: Palomino‐Ángel, Sebastián
name: Allen, George H.
name: Spence, Christopher
name: Aminjafari, Saeid
name: Rulli, Maria Cristina
name: Moore, Michele‐Lee
name: Huggins, Xander
name: Werth, Susanna
name: Schöne, Tilo
name: Abarca‐del‐Rio, Rodrigo
name: Wang‐Erlandsson, Lan
name: Fayne, Jessica V.
name: Larson, Kristine M.
name: Rubiano, Kristian
name: Argus, Donald
name: Kummu, Matti
name: Wada, Yoshihide
name: Tourian, Mohammad J.
name: Moreira, Daniel M.
name: Martens, Hilary R.
name: Wang, Jida
name: Frappart, Frédéric
name: Pavelsky, Tamlin
name: Girard, Félix
name: Song, Chunqiao
name: Berghuijs, Wouter R.
name: Yao, Fangfang
name: Marañon, Martin
Publisher: name: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Year: 2024

description: <p>Increasing climatic and human pressures are changing the world's water resources and hydrological processes at unprecedented rates. Understanding these changes requires comprehensive monitoring of water resources. Hydrogeodesy, the science that measures the Earth's solid and aquatic surfaces, gravity field, and their changes over time, delivers a range of novel monitoring tools that are complementary to traditional hydrological methods. It encompasses geodetic technologies such as Altimetry, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), Gravimetry, and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Beyond quantifying these changes, there is a need to understand how hydrogeodesy can contribute to more ambitious goals dealing with water‐related and sustainability sciences. Addressing this need, we combine a meta‐analysis of over 3,000 articles to chart the range, trends, and applications of satellite‐based hydrogeodesy with an expert elicitation that systematically assesses the potential of hydrogeodesy. We find a growing body of literature relating to the advancements in hydrogeodetic methods, their accuracy and precision, and their inclusion in hydrological modeling, with a considerably smaller portion related to understanding hydrological processes, water management, and sustainability sciences. The meta‐analysis also shows that while lakes, groundwater and glaciers are commonly monitored by these technologies, wetlands or permafrost could benefit from a wider range of applications. In turn, the expert elicitation envisages the potential of hydrogeodesy to help solve the 23 Unsolved Questions of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences and advance knowledge as guidance toward a safe operating space for humanity. It also highlights how this potential can be maximized by combining hydrogeodetic technologies simultaneously, exploiting artificial intelligence, and accurately integrating other Earth science disciplines. Finally, we call for a coordinated way forward to include hydrogeodesy in tertiary education and broaden its application to water‐related and sustainability sciences in order to exploit its full potential.</p>
<p>Plain Language Summary Increasing climatic and human pressures are changing the world's water resources and hydrological processes at unprecedented rates. Understanding these changes requires comprehensive monitoring of water resources. Hydrogeodesy, the science that measures the Earth's solid and aquatic surfaces, gravity field, and their changes over time, delivers a range of novel monitoring tools complementary to traditional hydrological methods. It encompasses technologies such as Altimetry, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), Gravimetry, and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Beyond quantifying these changes, we need to understand the potential of hydrogeodesy to contribute to more ambitious goals of water‐related and sustainability sciences. Addressing this need, we combine a meta‐analysis of over 3,000 articles to chart the range, trends, and applications of hydrogeodesy with an expert elicitation that systematically assesses this potential. We find a growing body of literature relating to advancements in hydrogeodetic methods, their accuracy and precision, and their inclusion in hydrological modeling. The expert elicitation envisages the large potential to solve hydrological problems and sustainability challenges. It also highlights how this potential can be maximized by combining several hydrogeodetic technologies, exploiting artificial intelligence, and accurately integrating other Earth science disciplines. Key Points This is a community view on hydrogeodesy, the science that measures the Earth's solid and aquatic surfaces, gravity field, and their changes Hydrogeodesy encompasses geodetic technologies such as Altimetry, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, Mass gravimetry, and Global Navigation Satellite Systems We study the evolution of hydrogeodesy and its role within current hydrological, sustainability science, and management frameworks</p>