Integration of state-of-the-art satellite soil moisture and terrestrial water storage products with hydrological modeling in support of water security in Canada

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Water security and the sustainability of water resources is one of the most urgent challenges facing Canada today. To address this concern, we must be able to accurately and rapidly monitor and predict how Canada's hydrologic processes vary over space in time. Recent advances in data collection from satellites (Earth observation) and hydrological modeling offer the opportunity to better understand the water cycle behavior and how it is changing in response to climate change. However, both Earth observation and hydrological modeling have limitations in practical applications. Advanced data assimilation technologies can be used to optimally merge Earth observation and hydrological modeling. However, there has been a lack of multiscale assimilation of satellite-derived hydrologic products and joint assimilation of different variable satellite products in fully integrated groundwater-surface water computational models. This proposal seeks to fill this research gap, particularly for Canadian drainage basins. This project aims to develop a multivariate assimilation framework for integrating remotely sensed soil moisture and terrestrial water storage (TWS) data with fully integrated surface-subsurface flow modeling to advance understanding of the physical processes that govern water movement in both the surface and subsurface domains of the Earth system. Both soil moisture and TWS exert fundamental control on global water, energy, and biogeochemical cycles. NASA's SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) mission and European Space Agency's SMOS (Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity) mission represent the current state-of-the-art in satellite soil moisture estimation, while the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission and its successor, GRACE-FO could provide the monthly TWS data. The remotely sensed soil moisture from SMAP and SMOS and the TWS observations from GRACE/GRACE-FO will be assimilated into a suite of groundwater-surface water models established for different regions across Canada through the developed multivariate assimilation system. Through the combined use of the developed modeling and assimilation system, satellite products, and the ground observations, this project will address a series of fundamental science questions, such as: to what extent satellite soil moisture and TWS products can advance physically-based groundwater-surface water computational modeling? how an integration of satellite observations and hydrological modeling can advance our ability to monitor and predict the variations of surface water and groundwater resources over space and time in Canada? and how the physical processes that govern the water cycle in Canada is changing in response to climate change? The proposed project is very well aligned with national and international priorities in terms of protecting Canada's freshwater resources and better understanding the global and regional hydrological cycle processes and their involvement in global changes.