US-Egypt Cooperative Research: Water Storage, Atmospheric Pressure, and the GRACE Gravity Satellite Mission

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0315533WahrDescription: This award is to support a collaborative project between Dr. John Wahr, Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado and Dr. Mosalam Shaltout, Desert Environment Research Institute, Menoufia University, El-Sadat City, Egypt. The primary objectives are related to the 5-year GRACE gravity satellitemission, launched in March 2002 by NASA and DLR (the German Space Agency). Bothobjectives involve the ability of GRACE to monitor changes in large-scale averages of ground-and surface-water in Egypt. These objectives are:(1) to validate the GRACE data to make sure they are continually meeting accuracy specifications; and (2) to use the GRACE measurements of large-scale water variability in Egypt to monitor such things as long-term aquifer depletion, and changes in the amount of water in the soil and sub-soil layers available for agricultural purposes. As part of the effort to achieve these goals, the PIs will continue the acquisition of pressure and temperature data as recorded at barometers throughout the country, including in the region surrounding the southeastern desert. Scope: This project is the continuation of a project initiated under a grant from NSF, Office of International Science and Engineering, and is part of an overall effort towards integrating time-variable satellite gravity observations into the hydrological sciences. These observations constitute a new and innovative data type for hydrology, with considerable promise for improved understanding of the global water cycle. This project will allow scientists from Egypt, a country where water resource issues are of considerable importance, to familiarize them with the analysis of this new data type. This project is being supported under the US-Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out these cooperative activities.